KWV Abraham Perold Insignis 2011

ageing : Enjoy now or cellar for eight to ten years.

Our Perold Insignis 2011 is the first wine to be launched under this label and represents the pinnacle of Shiraz quality in South Africa. This is a modern Shiraz style that is comparable in quality to the best Shiraz wines from around the world.

Perold Insignis, like any great work, arose out of passion. Dedicated to uncompromised quality, the winemaking team’s sole purpose is to express this vision and passionate spirit with this flagship wine, named after Abraham Perold in honour of the contributions and legacy he left not only at KWV but throughout the South African wine industry.

Vineyards
47% Paarl, 40% Swartland, 13% Banhoek

Vintage Conditions
The 2011 harvest in the Western Cape was warmer and dryer than normal, resulting in lower yields, smaller bunches and consequently riper flavours. These seasonal conditions produced sound, fully ripe and healthy grapes, with resultant wines rich, soft and generous in flavour.

Treatment in the vineyards:
Most of these vineyards are dry-land farmed and have in common an elevation above sea level of more than 200m. These vineyards are hand pruned to low bud numbers and shoot thinned twice, by hand, to ensure good micro-climate conditions for the grapes as well as to limit yield. This is important as full phenolic ripeness under dry farmed conditions insists on low balanced yield-to-growth relationships. These vineyards are tipped and leaf broken by hand again to ensure optimal sunlight reaches the bunches. Careful tasting of each row as well as the monitoring of vigour difference results in many subdivisions within each vineyard. These subdivisions are then sampled and harvested separately and kept separate to be evaluated later in the winery.

Blended from handpicked Shiraz vineyards, which are dry grown and concentrated, the grapes were hand sorted and cold soaked prior to fermentation, with a percentage of whole berries in the ferment. After pressing, the wine was racked to barrel for malolactic fermentation, which served to maximize the balance between the oak and fruit. The wine was left on the lees until spring and racked again a few times during its 20 months in oak barrels.

Maturation
An 85% portion of the wine was matured in French oak barrels and 15% in American oak, for 18 months, in a combination of 300-litre and 500-litre barrels. At total 70% of the barrels were first-fill.

Total production
10 000 bottles

Bottling date
November 2012