A cross over between the fresh and fruity style and the more serious, richer age worthy style. Definite ageing potential. Pear drop & honey flavours, aided by concentration from older low yielding vineyards. Good length due to the long natural fermentation process. Medium bodied.
A versatile wine equally well suited to partner lobster and other seafood, risotto or roast chicken.
variety : Chenin Blanc [ 100% Chenin Blanc ]
winemaker : Werner Engelbrecht
wine of origin : Western Cape
analysis : alc : 14 % vol rs : 4.18 g/l pH : 3.36 ta : 5.86 g/l
type : White style : Dry body : Medium wooded
pack : Bottle closure : Screwcap
in the vineyard : Werner Engelbrecht discovered this particular old and seemingly neglected bush vine vineyard when he assisted a young viticulturist with the classification of vineyards for a co-operative winery and immediately set out to contract the grapes from the grower.
Herds of quagga (a sub species of plains zebra) once roamed here, hunted by the Khoisan people, but more effectively so by the colonists, who ensured the animals' eventual extinction. A legacy of the wild horses (wilde paarden) is the name of mountain, Perdeberg in Afrikaans or more commonly Paardeberg. It is a somber, massively sprawling rise of granite outcrop encircled and highlighted by swathes of wheat fields and wide angled vistas stretching to the craggy silhouette of mountains dividing the interior coastal belt. It lies between Paarl & Malmesbury, a mere hour away from Stellenbosch.
It is not the sort of vineyard that will win prizes for appearances. You will be shocked if you expect neat monocultural rows of regimented wines, standing in gleaming bare earth. What makes these vineyards so exciting for us is the fact that fine and distinctive adventures in terroir are to be found, rather than ultra-ripe, super extracted fruit.
The decomposed granite characteristics of the Perdeberg mountain seem to deliver a wine of structural finesse and minerality, more terroir driven than the Swartland in general. The vines are left to struggle for what water they can find - generally, thanks to an element of retentive clay, there is enough, yet in drier years our response might have to be to drop of some crop (not that there was much to start with). Fortunately, more often than not, one of nature’s kindnesses here is a well-timed rainfall in December, prior to veraison.
2008 GROWING SEASON
After several dry winters we had very good rains and cold weather throughout the winter period. The spring and early summer was one of the coolest in years, which is very positive for flavour development on the white wines, and colour and structure on the reds. Despite a heat wave in late January, vineyards looked good and ripened properly and slowly.
in the cellar : Picking early in the morning, we de-stemmed the grapes before going into a separator. Free run juice was separated from the skins immediately and allowed to settle at 12° Celcius for 24 hours. No enzymes were used to aid the settling & the press juice was discarded. No cultured yeasts were used and took 8 weeks to complete the fermentation. The wine was left on the secondary lees for another 5 months before bottling. A small portion of the wine was fermented & matured in new 600 litre French barrels.