Fume Blanc

Please note: Award stickers are applied at the producer's discretion and may not be present on all bottles.

Each parcel is hand harvested at dawn, crushed and allowed a brief period of skin contact prior to gentle pressing, free-run juice settled overnight at low temperature, racked off to old 400L & 300L French oak barrels with a portion of fine lees and inoculated with non-interventionist yeast, cool-fermented over three weeks. Post-ferment the wines are racked to 225L old French oak with a fair portion of fine lees & allowed about seven months of maturation prior a barrel selection & blending to tank with a portion of fine lees.

The Stellenbosch Sauvignon combines fruit from high-lying Simonsberg vines on decomposed granite & Faure vines on a combination of granitic and ironstone soils buffeted by the wind off False Bay. The Elgin fruit originated from a now long-gone vineyard grown in a combination of Bokkeveld shale & decomposed sandstone. Agulhas Sauvignon and Semillon vines rooted in a combination of sandstone, Bokkeveld shale & ferricrete soils at the foot of Africa buffeted by howling ocean winds. A mild winter with moderate rainfall brought some relief, spring winds & a devastating heat wave followed by extreme late cold snap caused some strife, warm summer with intermittent spell of rain & heat, but otherwise a mildly challenging vintage resulted healthy clusters of extremely flavoursome fruit. ’19 is an unshowy showstopper.

The blended wine is kept at 12°C in tank for six months prior to bottling unfined & unfiltered, under DIAM10 to preserve the essence of the site, vintage & vines. Only yeast & small amounts of sulphur are added during vinification.