in the vineyard : History & Vineyards
More than sixty years' experience has enabled us to identify single vineyards of exceptional potential in the area bordered to the North by Stellenbosch, Wellington in the North-East, the mountains of Franschoek and Drakenstein to the South-East and Durbanville & Philadelphia in the South and South-West.
When Boland Wine Cellar identified an opportunity to create "single vineyard" wines, they made an additional investment in the cellar setup in order to separately and appropriately vinify smaller parcels of grapes. The grapes used in this release come from a single vineyard in a more temperate part of the Paarl region, regulated by cool summer breezes from the Atlantic Ocean.
The vineyard was planted in 1996 as bush vines in deep yellow/brown gravelly soil. The topsoil is of a rich duplex loam nature, with gravelly clay bottom soil that prevents too much vigour in growth and production. Average production is about 6 tons/ha. The vines are spur-pruned and vineyard practices are quite intensive, focusing on canopy management. Irrigation is of a supplementary nature only.
in the cellar : Grapes are de-stemmed, crushed and cold macerated for 2 - 4 days at 10° C and alcoholic fermentation is allowed to start spontaneously using the wild yeast on the skins.
This makes for a wine with a more natural, less manipulated expression of the season and terroir. Fermentation temperatures fluctuate between 16° - 25° C. We use macro oxidation techniques (emulating manual-punch downs of the cap) and regular pump-overs to extract colour and fruit while extended maceration of 7 - 14 days after fermentation is allowed.
All of the wine enjoys malolactic fermentation in small barrels (approximately 60% American oak and the balance French). We make almost exclusive use of new barrels, but experimentation with a percentage of 2nd and 3rd fill barrels is ongoing. Further barrel maturation of 24 - 26 months is allowed.