Red Blend

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

Each plot of these rare Portuguese varieties was harvested at dawn by hand & vinified separately. Each plot was crushed into small temperature controlled lagars (open-top cement fermenters), allowed a half day of cold soaking prior to the addition of yeast & thereafter gentle manual pigeage was done three times daily during the weeklong ferment, gently pressed and allowed to finish ferment in barrel where after malo-lactic was completed and then the wine was matured in a combination of old & new French oak casks for 16 months prior to blending into tank for 5 months to settle. The wine is then bottled unfined, unfiltered. Only yeast & small amounts of sulphur are utilized.

The first plot of Touriga Nacional planted in ‘71 in the Stellenbosch Kloof’s decomposed granitic soils, combines with Touriga Nacional rooted in granitic and schist rich soils on the leeward side of the Kasteelberg & a minute plot wedged into ancient deep red gravel clay Vilafontes soils in the shadow of Paarl rock. A concentrated & elegant vintage, despite the climatic chaos and general global pandemic – fair winter rainfall, moderate spring with some wind during flowering causing uneven fruit set, followed by a relatively “normal” season with inclement weather during the harvest, thankfully we missed these dramatic events in Stellenbosch in particular – resulted in small clusters of fruit, , bold flavours, firm tannins & buxomly elegant wines.