Reserve Cabernet Sauvignon

The grapes were de-stemmed, before passing across a sorting table for the removal of all unwanted material and then crushed directly into tanks for fermentation without the use of pumps. There is first a period of cold maceration for up to 5 days before the fermentation starts spontaneously (without the use of selected yeast strains). The grapes were fermented in stainless steel and wooden upright (foudre) fermenters. Pump-overs, dellastage and punching down of the cap were implemented twice a day for extraction until the fermentation completed. The tanks were given maceration post fermentation if the quality and tannin profile of the wine warranted it. The wines were put to barrel for malolactic fermentation after which they were racked, sulphured and put back to barrel for a further maturation.

Only grapes from the best blocks and from the best parts of these blocks are used. The average yield is between 7 and 10 t/ha. The grapes were hand picked at optimal ripeness between the 24th February and the 24th March.

The wines spent a total of twenty-two months in 63% new French oak - the rest being older French oak barriques. During maturation the wines received four racking’s, all done barrel to barrel. The wine was bottled in January 2017 with no fining or filtration.