An intense nose showing sour cherry, cranberry and pink sweets alongside lovely foresty notes of pine sap, moss and light woodsmoke. The palate is generous – ripe red fruits with a candied quality, balanced by deep umami flavour from seaweed and cured meats. Soft tannins and bracing acidity for a puckering finish.

Gentle and minimum intervention with a ‘hands-off ’ approach to reflect the terroir of the Riebeekberg. After hand picking in the early morning, bunches were destemmed into small fermenting tanks keeping 30% whole clusters. I allowed four days of cold soaking on skins for flavour to develop before a natural fermentation started. Punch downs were done by hand, twice a day, resulting in gentle extraction, preserving the grape’s natural character. An additional post-fermentation maceration of 10 days was allowed to extract the finer, softer tannins. After a total of 4 weeks on the skins, grapes were gently pressed with an old basket press into older French oak 225 L barrels for malolactic fermentation and maturation. 16 months in barrel and no fining. Bottled in August 2023.

ANALYSIS: ALC 13.5% | RS 2.1 g/l | TA 5.7 g/l | pH 3.31