variety : Chardonnay [ 100% Chardonnay ]
winemaker : Team Effort
wine of origin : Stellenbosch
analysis : alc : 12.5 % vol rs : 3 g/l pH : 3.3 ta : 6.1 g/l
type : White style : Dry body : Medium taste : Mineral wooded
pack : Bottle closure : Screwcap
in the vineyard : 2 parcels of twenty+ year old vines on Ocean-facing, South-easterly & South westerly slopes of the Helderberg Mountain. The vines, grown in Clovely soils (decomposed granite), are mature and virus free, usually yielding 40 hl / ha and providing wonderful fruit depth. However, in 2010, yields were severely limited and averaged just under 30 hl/ha in these blocks, whose soils are composed of decomposed granite and provide rare flinty & mineral flavours.
The 2010 vintage Was characterised by uneven flowering, low yields, some uneven ripening and a heat wave later in February –fortunately at a time when our Chardonnay was already busy fermenting in our cold white fermentation cellar ! In fact, for the early ripening varieties (Chardonnay, Chenin, Pinot Noir etc), 2010 turned into an exceptional vintage, though in small quantities. By achieving ripeness and picking (all by hand) prior to the heat wave we were able to achieve lower sugars / alcohol and wonderful balance, purity and freshness.
in the cellar : The grapes were all hand-picked at dawn into small lug-bins, chilled in our white wine cellar, then hand-fed over a sorting table. Whole bunch pressed, with the free-run juice settled for two days before being gravity-fed into barrel. Alcoholic fermentation entirely carried out in barrel (only using natural ambient yeast) for 8 – 10 weeks. Cellar maintained very cold at about 10° Celsius (fermentation peaking at about 18 °), then temperature dropped to 7°. Malo inhibited, by the cold. Battonnage applied weekly during the first two months, then occasionally for the following nine. Racked out of barrel after 11 months, assembled and settled with a light bentonite fining and no filtration until bottling in the middle of January 2011 –the same week in fact that we picked the following Chardonnay crop.
Barrels
100% of the wine was barrel fermented and matured. Of that, 100% French oak : Allier & Vosges 228 L barrels. 45% 2nd fill ,35% 3rd fill, 14% 4th fill and 6% new. The objective for us being that you don’t taste the barrel.