Three Pines Syrah

Beef, Lamb, Game (deer, venison), Poultry

This wine is based on our “Block 6” of Syrah, our oldest Syrah vineyard. The vineyard block is contiguous with our Block 5 Cabernet Sauvignon, it is from the same bench of soil — a very finely textured decomposed granite with a fairly high proportion of clay that contributes to good water retention.

The wine was matured in French oak barrels (35% new) for 12 months, before being moved to diamond-shaped, concrete vessels for 6 months. The wine was bottled unfined and unfiltered.

This is a single-vineyard wine from our highest elevation Syrah vineyard, a small block contiguous to our single-vineyard Cabernet. The grapes for this wine were hand-harvested in late-February. After being cooled overnight to 14 degrees C., they were carefully hand-sorted and crushed into small open fermentation vats and allowed to cold-soak for several days. A small portion (10%) was left whole bunch and also uncrushed. Regular, vigorous punchdowns were given every 4-6 hours for the first half of fermentation, then every 6-8 hours thereafter.

Stark-Condé Wines is located in the picturesque Jonkershoek Valley in Stellenbosch. It is a dramatic valley with steep changes in vineyard elevation from 150 to 600 metres making for a range of sites with distinct characteristics. At Stark-Condé they stick to traditional winemaking methods: open tank fermentation meticulous sorting of grapes hand-punchdowns basket pressing and maturation in small French oak barrels.