Lammershoek Cellar Foot Mourvèdre 2012
The 2012 Mourvedre has much more fruit initially than the previous two vintages and is lighter on both the palate and nose. The palate has certain intensity because of the grape’s natural tendency towards higher acidity and tannin structure. Think savoury, spicy and earthy flavours. The wine benefits from decanting at this stage but has great ageing potential.
variety : Mourvedre [ 100% Mourvèdre ]
winemaker : Craig Hawkins
wine of origin :
analysis : alc : 13 % vol rs : 1.2 g/l pH : 3.65 ta : 5.3 g/l
type : Red style : Dry
pack : Bottle size : 0 closure : Cork
AWARDS
• 91 points - Wine Advocate
in the vineyard : The wine was made from a single block of 0.9ha; the bush vines are 16 years of age. The block is situated on a north-west facing slope on Lammershoek granite and is farmed dry-land and organically. There is a large amount of exposed granite in the vineyard which we like to think is carried through clearly in the wine.
about the harvest: 2012 was a very challenging vintage. Cool, dry weather allowed a slow even growing season, but this was abruptly interrupted by severe heat in early January with no rain for 3-4 months. This made conditions extremely difficult and yields were thus naturally low. Important decisions needed to be made in the vineyard of when to harvest the grapes so as to allow enough material to be extracted into the final wine without allowing any unripe or over ripe flavours due to the heat. The grapes were harvested on the 16th of February.
in the cellar : The grapes were fermented in an open wooden fermenter with 100 % whole bunches. To release some juice for fermentation the grapes were lightly foot trodden and then left to ferment spontaneously. Pigeage (manual working of the cap) by foot was done only when needed; there is no recipe for making wine. We rather let the wine tell us when it’s the right time to work the cap or mix the juice.
The purpose of the stems is to add another taste dimension and “tension” to the wine. Fermentation on the skins was not very long and the juice was pressed off on taste (in this case it was only 1.5 weeks) into old 500l casks where malolactic and any other fermentation was finished off. A small amount of sulphur (15ppm) was added after one year and the wine was never racked off its gross lees but rather blended and then put back on the original lees in the same casks.
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