Incredibly dense, dark red colour. On the nose, intense wild red berry jumps out of the glass. This is backed up by toasty and spicy ripe plum and blackcurrant. The palate is as intriguing as it is balanced with loads of character. Youngberry, vanilla, chocolate chip muffin, cloves, toffee and just a hint of hedonistic animal magnetism.
Stir fried strips of ginger beef.
in the cellar : The Dragon Tree is our work-in-progress for that holy grail, The Cape Blend. It will always be a work in progress and never a formula as climate is variable, but it will always have Pinotage as the life blood, and Cabernet as ‘dem bones’. These are varieties I have been blending since my early days in the UK import side of the industry – In my (admittedly limited experience here for such a bold statement) most Cape Cabernet clones seem to actually need Pinotage more than Merlot and Pinotage loves Cabernet – what is perhaps more certain is that it is a blend that can make great wine.
As with all our reds we really push for ripeness. The Cabernet and Pinotage were both fermented in open top stainless steel ‘Flagstone’ fermentors (traditional, manual punch downs every 4 hrs, 24 hours a day). Both components had extensive pre-ferment cold soak at about 5oC, under inert gas. The Pinotage finished ferment in barrel, while the Cabernet had extensive (up to 5 weeks) post fermentation maceration. Our intention is to make a wine we can drink a lot of, from its relative youth until at least its 8th birthday. It is 100% matured in new oak (60% American, 40% French) for about 15 months. However, we have never fined a red wine and we do not intend doing so here either. This wine will probably go to bottle unfiltered as well – depending on laboratory trials.
The wine takes its name from a Dragon Tree given to the Port Captain of Cape Town, by a passing ships captain over 100 years ago. It is called a Dragon Tree because of its blood red sap. And it is planted almost exactly above our barrel maturation cellar.