Reserve Collection Syrah

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

The grapes are hand picked 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. There are minimal racking’s during maturation.

The average yield is around 8t/ha. The grapes were hand- picked on the 18th and 22nd of February. The grapes are picked at optimum flavour and phenolic ripeness with sugars of between 24.0 to 24.5 degrees brix and acidities around 5.5 g/l

The wine matures on the gross lees for around 10 months after which it is racked at the time of blending. The wine is then matured for a further 10 months before being racked again just before bottling.