Kershaw Elgin Syrah 2013

2015 Platters - 5 stars
2015 Tim Atkin - 93/100

In 2011, owner Richard Kershaw MW established Richard Kershaw Wines (RKW) to create clonally selected, sitespecific, cool climate wineparadigms from apposite noble grapes i.e. ones with the ability to produce world-class examples. SA’s coolest wine district, Elgin Valley, reflected these principles benefitting from higher altitude, ocean proximity, specific cloud cover sequencing, high cold units and a large diurnal range, enabling the germane grapes, Chardonnay and Syrah, to show a sense of place.

Wine Of Origin: Elgin, Western Cape, South Africa

Total Vineyard Production: 9.7 tons selected from 5 small parcels of Syrah.

Varietal Information: 100% Syrah made up of clones SH9c, SH22 & SH99. 

Season: The combination of cool Spring weather and further rain gave plenty of time for the buds to break; a uniform budbreak and flowering period with wind only starting later (and starting strongly) enabling healthy grapes with only minor damage to some of the shoots. Peak temperatures were noticeably lower than the Long Term Average (LTA) but more importantly even lower than 2012, which itself was considereda cool vintage; a cool February and March enabled good fruit set with slow and steady flavour development, although the depth of colour is less than 2012.

The grapes were handpicked under autumnal skies into small lug baskets.

Hand-Picking Dates: 27th March - 4th April 2013

Brix at Harvest: 22.2 – 24.2

The grapes were manually sorted on a conveyor before the stems were removed. The destemmed berries fell onto a vibrating table in order to remove jacks and substandard berries before dropping uncrushed into a small 500kg conical hopper and forklifted into open topped fermenters. The grapes underwent a 3-day maceration before spontaneous fermentation began. A gentle pigeage program was charted and the grapes remained on skins for 21-29 days. The wine was then racked to barrel under gravity and the remaining pomace basket-pressed. Malolactic then proceeded in barrel followed by a light sulphuring and 17-month maturation. No finings were necessary and the wine was simply racked unfiltered prior to bottling.

Barrel Selection: A small number of artisanal coopers were selected from Burgundy and Rhone, with only French oak chosen. 55% of the oak was new with the remainder split into 2nd and 3rd fill barrels of which 4 were 500L puncheons and the remainder 228L pièces.

Total Production: 6520 bottles all individually marked on the label.