In the throes of enduring an incredibly wet and soggy Cape winter – this was definitely the Cape of Storms version, with not much of the Good Hope factor! Good however, for resting vines and people as there's not much one can do in this weather but go into hibernation, reflect on the past season, write the newsletter and wait for spring. (By the way, we are far too busy crashing tractors, dealing with staff shortages and other wrist-slitting excitement during harvest to be sending out daily harvest reports.) So here it is.
The 2007 year was truly abundant, with masses of blackberries in January, luscious porcinis in April and then just to show off, Mother Nature followed through in the vineyards.
A long cool dry summer ensured a quality of fruit which exceeded even that which we have come to expect from this farm. And what was good for the goose proved to be good for the gander with reds and whites both enjoying optimal long, dry, and cool ripening conditions.
 SAUVIGNON BLANC
Our Sauvignon blanc continues to be our flagship wine with a fan club which seems to have gathered a momentum way beyond our marketing input. Even Durban seems to have taken off – and this after we were warned that "no-one drinks wine in Durban – where Cane reigns!"
The 2006 Sauvignon got its fair share of mentions including SAA First Class, 4½ Star Platter, 4 Star Wine Magazine, 91 points Stephen Tanzer in the USA (who also rated it as one of the best SA examples he had tasted this year) and a recommendation from Jancis Robinson in the UK. Also gratifying was the highest rated Sauvignon blanc (4½ Stars) that Wine Magazine awarded our 2002 Sauvignon in their tasting of 5 year old whites. Confirmation indeed, that our wines have great aging potential.
This year's vintage promises to please more than ever. Load after load of perfect fruit trundled into the cellar and the result is a wine of superb quality, with an intensity of palate weight, length and minerality that overshadows any of its predecessors.
I know that every owner thinks that their wine is the very elixir of life, but in my opinion this years Sauvignon really is special, and I'm usually the 'prophet of doom' in the family, reigning in any over excitement and generally being a complete wet blanket.
BETTER NOBLE LATE THAN NEVER
A first for us this year was the harvesting of botritysed Sauvignon blanc which we used to make a Noble Late dessert style wine. Botrytis is a type of rot, but not unwelcome amongst some white varietals because of its ability to dehydrate the berry which it afflicts and thus concentrate the flavour and sugar content of the berry, enabling one to make a Sauterne style dessert wine. Hence also known as 'noble rot' because of this positive action.
This particular vineyard, Klipkop, has habitually been afflicted with botrytis in past years but we have never allowed it to develop fully by leaving the grapes (late harvest) due to lack of sufficient volumes of grapes for our Sauvignon blanc.
The conditions which encourage the onset of botrytis are the same conditions which allow sour rot to develop. Sour rot renders grapes unusable and any infected bunches need to be discarded. So, one generally ends up losing the good with the bad. Thus it requires a very special season where you have enough morning mist to aid the development of healthy botrytis spores, followed by enough sunshine to dry out the bunches to inhibit the onset of sour rot. Any viticulturalists reading this crudely over-simplified scenario have probably already jumped off the top of the tractor shed by now! In a nutshell, 2007 provided just the right conditions and we brought in spectacular, evenly botrytised Sauvignon Blanc, which was fermented in stainless steel tanks and is now maturing in barrel.
An unctuous, honeyed and heady wine reigned in by an impressive level of natural acidity which is imperative in dessert wines if you want to avoid a flabby, cloying, sickly sweet drink.
Now, if we can just get Andrew to stop tasting it every five minutes we may even be able to offer some for sale in a year or two!
RIPENING THE REDS
Although there seems to be a lot of lip service paid to the elegance and finesse of cool climate, classically styled, low alcohol red wine, there is a big demand for New World style, fruit driven wines with a "worth the walk to the cellar" alcohol level. By which I mean a decent 13.5% or there about and not a "land you in jail 15%"!
So, as you diligent followers of previous newsletters will note, we are on a constant mission to push the levels of ripeness in our fruit in an effort to add a little more of that plushness that optimal ripeness gives. The upside is that no matter how long we let the grapes hang the sugar levels will never orbit out of control. It"s just not hot enough. The downside is of course that we start overlapping quite seriously with the rainy season. And then we have a year like 2007 where everything happens as it should.
So we have beautifully concentrated, ripe, rich Merlots, Cabernets and Petit Verdots in barrel for which we are truly thankful, if one spares a thought for France at the moment where it hasn't stopped raining since April, I think. This farming business is definitely not for the faint hearted!
Further fine tuning planned for the future is a barrel selection reserve red wine, with our traditional Merlot / Cabernet blend continuing to offer a high quality, good value for money red.
SHIRAZ NEWS
Our first harvest of "intentional" Shiraz was inspired by a small parcel of "nursery error" Shiraz. (Again, for those of you who haven't read your previous newsletters (!) we had a wrong delivery of about 400 Shiraz vines which were unknowingly planted as Cabernet.) Anyway when the penny finally dropped we vinified these grapes separately and discovered that we'd made a wonderful Shiraz.
But rationing out a grand total of four barrels of Shiraz can prove to be a real headache, so at least now we will have a half decent quantity of Shiraz. The varietal lived up to its reputation for being able to produce quality fruit off young vines which is seldom the case in reds.
This was helped in part by keeping crop levels down to a dangerously low level (economically speaking that is) and the naturally difficult growing conditions of the Shiraz vineyards.
These stony, gravelly slopes allow for efficient drainage which also prevents the vines from being over watered. I recall phoning Kevin Watt (our viticulturist and legend in his own time), on one occasion to ask him if he'd completed the soil samples in the Shiraz block only to be told that he'd be done just as soon as he found some soil! The reflection of sunlight off the white quartz and sandstone toughened the skins of the exposed bunches early, avoiding sunburn later on despite the lack of vigorous foliage.
These vineyards are also part of our biodiversity drive where we allow the natural fynbos to grow between the vines in an effort to encourage a wide variety of plant species to co-habit between the vines instead of the ubiquitous mono-cover crop which is traditional. This also means fewer disturbances to the soil surface as there is no need to plough each year in preparation for a cover crop.
We have also started making small amounts of our own compost to increase the level of organic matter in these soils. Mulching is done with skins, stalks and vine trimmings which are left to break down for a year or two.
The wine is currently in barrel, about 30% new and the rest 2nd fill.
A barrel of Mourvedre was also made for the first time to use as a blending component which has also exceeded our expectations to the point where we are grafting over a further 250 Shiraz vines to Mourvedre. The beauty of grafting over is that is allows you to fine tune your blending components without having to plant more vines and ultimately change the nature of this small family run business.
There is no doubt that quality is directly linked to hands on attention to detail and we already have sufficient vineyards to keep our hands full. The other advantage of grafting of course, is that you only lose one season of fruit as opposed to waiting for a newly planted vine to reach 3rd leaf.
THE PEOPLE
Enough about the plants, and onto the people that run the show up here. Jacqui Henderson (my sister) and Charmaine Mc Robert continue to blaze a formidable trail in the marketing department.
Richard Gunn, (Andrew's son) has joined us for a year and apart from a few dodgy delivery experiences in the beginning, I think he secretly quite enjoys working here and has actually learnt a thing or two about wine. Although of course, we are now being blamed for ruining his ability to enjoy box wine and other vinified products in the R6 / bottle price range.
Niels Verburg (wine maker and soother of frazzled nerves), Thapelo Hlasa (assistant winemaker), John Foloti (foreman), Joseph (Head of Vineyards), Thys Windvogel, Lukas Stompies (foreman on the bottom farm) and all our men and women on the ground who do the real work in the vineyards.
Then there's Karen and Louise in the office, and of course Andrew who somehow manages to keep it all together. (Although I do suspect he's saving up to pay someone professional to do the annual newsletter), but until then, adios amigos, enjoy the new vintage and cheers to you for your support.
Best regards
We will be at WINEX in Johannesburg from the 23rd to 26th October and we will be part of the Elgin Open Gardens on the 3rd and 4th and 10th and 11th of November.
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