Gramadoelas

A great choice with more steak-like fish including tuna steaks, swordfish.

The 2021 vintage was again very arid during ripening and some cooler nights from mid February delayed ripening. Grapes from the ‘21 vintage sees 20 days longer on the vine than ‘20, while still linear and fresh. Klein Karoo (not by Sinai Hill). A big part of me also grow up around here. This is a wine that goes off script to the known and heritage, and focussed on the horizons of viticulture frontiers in SA. My love for Grenache blanc came from working in Spain’s Montsant and Priorat regions over two vintages. There I realised how similar the ripening climate and soils were to our own backyard Karoo region. Planted in 2009 on these Schist and shale soils of the Klein Karoo. It’s very far away from normal viticultural zones and in the middle of nowhere, between the echoeing hills (”Koppies”). We refer to the site as the ‘Gramadoelas’, meaning “a remote place”.

Aged on its fine lees for 9 months in older burgundian barrels (228s) and 400’s, where MLF is also naturally completed. Bottled Unfiltered and Unfined.

In the cellar I like to keep the purity of this vineyard itself captured as uncompromised as possible. Handharvested grapes in lugboxes. As with all my whites I tend to make use of pre ferment skin macerations, where I feel it helps as a natural balancing attemp between the lean acidity, salinity & texture. No additions here or manupiltaions of the pure grapes, except carefully judged SO2. All the grapes are destemmed and left to soak on their skins for 2 nights. It is a slow persuit with this vulnarable and difficult terroir to work with. But nonetheless, I find a decent purity and tension on this seemingly light Karoo white, the oposite to what one expects from this harsh environment’s conditions.

Bernhard Bredell: Why the name “Scions of Sinai”? Scion = In plant biology referring to the top part of a plant/vine that exists above the ground. We say “The Scion cultivar of that vine is Chenin blanc and the rootstock cultivar is Richter 99″. In old English literature the word “Scion” also refers to “the descendant of…”. Making it applicable to refer to myself as a “scion” from Sinai Hill as well as the vines. Plural “Scions”. Pronounced: SIGH-ENS. Sinai = Referring to Sinai Hill not the famous biblical mountain but the folk name for the foothill in the lower Helderberg region of Stellenbosch where the Bredell’s have farmed with old dryland bushvines for many generations. Luckily some of them are still rooted and a great part of them owned by my cousin Pieter Bredell (also 7th generation Bredell). Pronounced: SIN-EYE. It’s me and these couple of old bushvines… together we are by definition the Scions of Sinai. The descendants of Sinai Hill.