Oceanside Cabernet Sauvignon Merlot (Coastal)

The vines for this wine can be found in Paarl and Wellington. We use natural pesticides to retain the area’s Biodiversity and have large areas left out to encourage natural birdlife and indigenous plant species to thrive. In 2019 our crop was again down in terms of volume, as the vines begin to recover from the lack of precipitation of the last few years. With that said, it was wonderful to see the vitality that returned to our vineyards after the relatively good rains received over the winter of 2018.

Picked at sunrise, the Cabernet Sauvignon was mostly whole berry fermented, whereas the Merlot grapes were crushed and destemmed into separate fermenters. The grapes were cold soaked and a slight carbonic maceration employed for a lift in the fruit expression of the eventual wine. Cool fermentation temperatures and soft, daily pump-overs were used throughout to ensure an unhurried extraction of tannin from the skins. The wine was drawn off the skins straight thereafter in order to avoid over extraction. Gentle pressing yielded only the best, softly textured wine and this was transferred to tank for malolactic fermentation. 40% of the wine was matured in French oak barrels for a period of 10 months before blending and bottling. The use of SO2 was limited to an absolute minimum throughout so as to allow the wine to follow its own course and express its origin most clearly.