Vineyard Selection Shiraz 2018 6x75cl

• 75cl bottle

Although this wine has a great intensity of flavour on both the bouquet and the palate, the wine is not overpowering and shows well-judged restraint. Waves of wild berry fruit give way to hints of spice and lavender on the finish. The supple tannin structure supports the wine beautifully and ensure that this wine will mature gracefully. Enjoy now or over the next 10 years.

Vineyards

Most of the fruit for this wine was sourced from our own vineyards with a few selected parcels from other Stellenbosch vineyards. 2018 was yet again a dry season and a relatively warm winter.This posed a few problems that the winemaking team had to manage carefully in the winery and at blending. All in all, the grapes were very healthy at harvest and had a good concentration of flavours at harvest.

Vintage

2018 is the 3rd dry season that we have experienced in a row and has seen the region experience severe drought conditions. Winter arrived late and with an early and warm Spring we experienced rather uneven bud-break. This paired with a few small rain events during flowering, led to one of the most challenging growing seasons in recent memory. This put a lot of pressure on our team to carefully manage the vineyards to mitigate the uneven shoot-growth and uneven ripening to ensure grapes that were as close to optimal ripeness as possible for the team in the cellar. Later in the harvest things slowed down quite a bit and we think this was due to a combination of higher than normal vine stress earlier in the season combined with particularly low night time temperature that began toward the end of February. While 2018 might not be the most classic red vintage we think it will result in lovely rich, plush reds that will be immensely enjoyable to drink. It will definitely be remembered as one of the more challenging ones for the team but, all in all we very happy with the end result for the 2018 harvest and hope you will enjoy the wines that are released in due course.

Winemaking

All the vineyard blocks were harvested and vinified separately. After hand picking, grapes were sorted and transferred to tank “whole berry” i.e. without crushing. During fermentation the juice was pumped over regularly for optimum colour and flavour extraction. After fermentation the wines were pressed and transferred to barrel for malolactic fermentation. The wine was matured for 21 months in a combination first (30%), second (30%) and third fill (40%) French oak barrels before the various components were blended and prepared for bottling.

Enjoy with:

• Grilled and Roasted Red Meats
• Casseroles/Stews
• Mild Creamy Cheeses
• Mature Strong Cheeses

Try with slow cooked braised beef dishes.