Description
Tasting Note
The nose is complex and entices with its garrigue character and aromas of blackberry, blueberry and graphite. The palate is exceptionally elegant, yet precise with plummy fruit, redcurrant, very fine grained tannins and a certain nervosit? on the mid-palate, suggesting significant ageing protentional. The finish is delicate, yet offers length and finesse of fruit.
Vineyard & Winemaking
Our Franschhoek Cabernet Sauvignon, containing 4% Cabernet Franc, was sourced from four individual parcels adjacent to one another on a south-westerly aspect of the Franschhoek Valley, where the soil is predominantly sandy loam over granitic bedrock. 2015 was a great vintage in all respects, with harvest commencing one to two weeks earlier than usual. Cold winter conditions followed by high rainfall in mid-November and early January resulted in a textbook phenolic profile with excellent natural acidity in the Cabernet grapes.
Grapes were picked by hand into small lug boxes, bunch sorted with berry selection and gently destalked. The grapes underwent a cold maceration in traditional concrete vessels and then fermented at temperatures between 27?C and 30?C with frequent pump-overs to extract aromas, colour and tannins. After alcoholic fermentation a prolonged malolactic fermentation occurred naturally in 225 litre barriques. The wine was matured in French oak from our preferred coopers, Sylvain and Saury.
Technical Analysis
- Alcohol: 14.3% vol
- RS: 2.2 g/l
- TA: 5.4 g/l
- W.O. Franschhoek
