Tokara Reserve Collection Syrah 2014

ageing : This wine drinks well now but will benefit from ageing until 2022.

The grapes are hand picked and loaded into a cold store where they are chilled down to approximately 6 degrees Celsius. 25% of the grapes are first loaded whole bunch into the tank. The remainder of the grapes were de-stemmed and crushed directly into tanks for fermentation without the use of pumps. There is first a period of cold maceration for up to 5 days before the fermentation starts spontaneously (without the use of selected yeast strains). The fermentation took place in stainless steel and wooden upright (foudre) fermenters. Pump-overs, dellastage and punching down of the cap were implemented twice a day for extraction until fermentation was completed. The tanks were given maceration post fermentation if the quality and tannin profile of the wine warranted it. The wines were put to barrel for malolactic fermentation after which they were racked, sulphured and put back to barrel for a further maturation. The wines spent a total of twenty months in 40% new French oak Demi Muid barrels and- the rest being older French oak barriques. There are3 minimal racking’s during maturation only once at blending after 14 months when the wine was returned to barrel for further maturation for up till 22 months.

The wine was bottled unfiltered and without fining in January 2015.
7 500 bottles were produced.