Reserve Collection Syrah

The grapes are handpicked and loaded into a cold store where they are chilled down to approximately 6 degrees Celsius. 25% of the grapes are first loaded whole bunch into the tank. The remainder of the grapes were de-stemmed and 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 fermentation took place in wooden upright (foudre) fermenters. Pump-overs, dellastage and punching down of the cap were implemented twice a day for extraction until fermentation was 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.

The average yield is around 12 t/ha. The grapes were hand-picked at optimal ripeness on the 14th and 25th March. The grapes are picked at optimum flavour and phenolic ripeness with sugars of between 23.5 to 25.5 degrees brix and acidities around 6.5 g/l

The wines spent a total of twenty months in 30% new French oak Demi Muid barrels and- the rest being older French barrels. There are minimal racking’s during maturation. The wine matures on the gross lees for around 10 months after which it is at the time of blending. The wine is then matured for a further 12 months (total of 22 months) before being racked again just before bottling. The wine was bottled unaltered and without fining in January 2016.