Wine shows typical beeswax/dried peach on the nose, with good weight and balance on the palate, minerality in the 2011 more pronounced than the 2010, probably because of less botrytis, the wonderful mouthfeel that typifies ripe Chenin has already started to develop, but will increase in the next 12 months.
in the vineyard : Grapes from dry land bush vine were used, 2 ha in size, planted (by my father) in 1972 on Richter 99, at 280 m above sea level on a western slope. Vineyard goes by the name of “Houmoed“.
AGE OF VINES 38 years
YIELD hl/ha and tonnes/ha 34 hl- and 5.3 tonnes/ha
ROOTSTOCKS R99
TRAINING METHOD Bush Vines
SOIL TYPE Oakleaf, high potential soil
in the cellar : Very small crop in 2011, 33% less than 2010! Grapes in excellent condition, almost no botrytis, 15 hours skin contact, juice cleaned by settling, allowed to ferment spontaneously with wild yeast, inoculated with Vin7 after about a third of sugar was fermented, stayed on primary lees for about 3 months to reap benefit of autolysis of yeast cells, unfiltered until the final filtration prior to bottling.