The Drift Year of the Rooster Rosé 2012


variety : Touriga Franca [ 100% Touriga Franca ]
winery : The Drift Estate
winemaker : Bruce Jack and Gerhard Swart
wine of origin : Overberg
analysis : alc : 11.0 % vol  rs : 3.8 g/l  pH : 3.2  
type : Rose  style : Dry  body : Light  taste : Fruity  
pack : Bottle  size : 750ml  closure : Screwcap  

ageing : Strawberry and gazpacho soup. Crayfish, cooked with a ground cumin, fennel and coriander seed rub, served with a watermelon and sliced fresh fennel salad, coriander leaves and a lemon aioli. And if you would like to pair this wine with a dessert, try hazelnut and dukkah flavoured meringue shards with a goats cheese cream and strawberries cooked in a rosé syrup.

From the Label

This Rosé is about celebrating the outdoor, sun-filled lifestyle. Like all the wines we make, our priority is to make seriously good quality, world class wine. However, we want to do this in harmony with nature and with respect to our land and those who work with us

This wine is perfectly suited to long, lazy picnics, watching the sun set or coaxing the settling coals before a braai. It will pair very well with crayfish salad, smoked salmon and even spicy food, but can also be easily enjoyed on it's own.

in the vineyard : 

We chose a north facing, gently sloping site quite high up against the mountain. At around 350m above sea level this vineyard is cool in summer, but because of the north facing aspect gets enough sun. The soil is unusually homogenous on this spot of the farm, but it is quite sandy with decomposed Table Mountain sandstone, decomposed granitic substrate over shale and clay. I assumed it would be the sort of soil that would be tricky, but could provide great aromatic intensity and some persistent flavours, as well as natural high acids. And so it is happily proving. We never really worry about the sugar level. It is more important to get the right crisp, red fruits and balanced acidity.

All the hard work actually gets done in the vineyard and starts six months before harvesting with very careful hand pruning in the winter, which on The Drift farm can be very cold indeed. 

about the harvest: The Drift farm is probably too cold to ripen this variety properly, but it reaches 19 degrees Balling with healthy fruit and beautifully developed strawberry and cherry flavours. It is around this sugar level that we harvest for our Rosé. The grapes are hand harvested on flavour alone.

in the cellar : The bunches are softly destemmed (berries taken off in a destemming machine) and slightly crushed. After a few hours of contact in the press to extract the right amount of red colour from the skins, the grapes are pressed dry and fermented in old 500 litre French barrels until bone dry. We age the wine in the barrels for 8 months and then bottle with a light filtration. That’s about it - very simple winemaking. No tricks - just natural winemaking, so the vineyard can speak through the eventual wine.

find our wines in :

OTHER VINTAGES

Touriga Franca
Touriga Franca
Cabernet Sauvignon