2007 Juliet Cullinan Wine Connoisseur's Awards - First: Bordeaux Blend
Top 20 - Calyon Trophy
Veritas 2006 - Silver
2006 International Wine and Spirit Competition (IWSC) - Silver Best in Class
2006 Michelangelo International Wine Awards - Gold Medal
4 Stars – John Platter wine guide
International Wine and Spirit Competition – Silver and best in Class (Western Cape)
A Modern classic where old-world elegance meets new-world opulence, this Cricket Pitch 2003 embodies the best of both worlds. Ripe dark fruit with sweet vanilla, raspberry, violets and black cherry, are infused with smokey garam masala spice mélange and a hint of tanned leather.
Rich powerful dark fruit continues through the palate with sumptuous truffle undertones, complex spicy tannins, silky raspberry and mocha for length.
variety : Merlot [ 58% Merlot, 40% Cabernet Sauvignon, 2% Pinotage ]
winemaker : Matthew Copeland
wine of origin : Coastal
analysis : alc : 14.5 % vol rs : 3.5 g/l pH : 3.55 ta : 5.9 g/l va : 0.70 g/l so2 : 104 mg/l fso2 : 28 mg/l
type : Red wooded
pack : Bottle closure : Cork
in the vineyard : 2003 is hailed as an outstanding year. On Welbedacht, this was no exception. Spring arrived with a bang and beautiful uniform crops developed. The summer was dry but not terribly hot. A brief day of showers near the end of harvest helped alleviate water stress in the vineyards.
In a nut shell, it was a good disease free spring, with a long cool, dry summer and enough water at the end to minimize plant stress. These aspects contributed to a high level of phenolic ripeness as well as considerable depth and complexity in the berries.
A plus point for Welbedacht is the initiation and maintenance of a weather station on the farm, more than 75years ago. This weather station helps us to avoid undue water stress in the vineyards and allows us to apply less pesticide with greater efficiency.
Although the Burger family has become synonymous with rugby and Schalk Snr and Schalk Jnr are only the eighth father and son to both wear the Springbok Jersey, their first love has always been for the exceptionally intriguing game of cricket.
Coupled with their love and passion for the soil and for farming, Welbedacht’s first release is an ode to the role that terroir plays in the ancient arts of fine winemaking and playing the game of cricket.
As a measure of this passion we cut and nestled our cricket oval into the same terroir as our beloved vineyards and named our first release “Cricket Pitch.â€
in the cellar : Fermentation temperatures are kept moderate to promote elegance and temper harsh tannin extraction. Once pressed, the wine was racked to barrel, where it under went malo-lactic fermentation. Only first and second-fill barrels were used to enhance the wine’s natural intensity and structure.
After 18 months in oak the wine was blended and given a light albumen (egg white) fining to round-off any unwanted tannins.