Grapes were hand-picked in mid-May from our 0.96 ha Semillon vineyard which was planted at Boekenhoutskloof in 1997. This unique vineyard is situated on the banks of the Franschhoek River and has the perfect meso-climate for the proliferation of Botrytis cinerea. Cooler weather during the later stages of the 2016 growing season with some rainfall helped immensely with the development of Noble Rot in the bunches that were hand-selected in the vineyard during picking
A meticulous selection process with several successive tries is done in our vineyard to select noble rot grapes as botrytis infected bunches are paramount in making great Noble Late Harvest. Whole bunches were carefully placed in our JLB basket press and traditionally fermented for approximately 5 to 7 weeks in three first-fill Chateaux barriques. After 30 months of maturation on gross lees the wine was sterile filtered into bottle without any fining.