Elgin Sauvignon Blanc

Lightly seasoned white fish, Sushi, Vietnamese style foods, Gouda Cheese

Grapes come from two vineyard blocks in the Elgin area lying at 540 meters above sea level. The one block is planted in an east-west row direction and the other in a north-south direction. Soils are derived from broken sandstone and has a high clay content, which is needed for great water retention. Because of this great water holding capacity, the vineyards can be dryland farmed. Vines benefit from the cooling sea breezes from the Cape South Coast. The 2022 growing season will be remembered by how late everything happened. Bud break was between 2 and 3 weeks later than the norm, which then in effect led to the harvest to also start 2 weeks later. A relative cool and dry growing season followed some late winter rains, which led to producing elegant wines with great phenolic maturity.

The wine was fermented in stainless steel tanks, where the fermentation temperature was kept at around 12°C for 3 weeks. After 3 months on the fermentation lees, the wine was racked and sulphured. Bottling took place early spring 2022.

The grapes were harvested in two stages. The one block was picked at 22.5° Balling and the other at 23.8° Balling to get different flavour spectrums. Both were picked by hand in the early mornings, crushed, destemmed under a CO2 blanket and skins left to cold macerate in tank for 16 hours to extract the flavour precursors. Tank was then emptied into press and the free run and light press juice was separated from the rest.

Travelling through the Swartland on the back of a truck, heading towards an auction, a Nguni cow knew a beautiful vineyard when she saw one and jumped off. She was appropriately named Survivor when the grower found her grazing in his vineyard. Pierre Wahl excels at creating powerful and elegant wines, choosing to showcase the cultivar’s fruit characteristics, embraced by an old-world elegance in structure and texture. A masterfully crafted fine wine brand that speaks to inner strength, roots, character and refined taste.