IT’S REALLY ALL ABOUT THE VINEYARDS
Chenin Blanc grapes can be used to produce many different wine styles because they readily take on different characteristics depending on where they are grown; how they are aged, and how they are used.
The varietal has always been seen as the “workhorse” of the South African wine industry, contributing acidity to bigger bulk blends. Because of this past, we are now fortunate to have older and well-established bush vines that produce naturally low yields and thus have a huge influence on grape quality.
The Seriously Cool Chenin Blanc is produced from different bush vine blocks on farms we manage on the Schapenberg and range from 10 to 20 years in age. The vineyards are close to the ocean, which ensure a long growing season and allow for ripe fruit with good concentration and balanced acidity. Our soils are of sandstone origin with medium-sized stones, which help with drainage and good moisture retention, whilst the components coming from the bottom of our farm is rooted in sandy soils. The blocks all have a low production of approximately 4 t/ha.
A GENTLE HAND
The winemaking philosophy for all our premium white wines from Waterkloof is the same. We follow a traditional, minimalistic approach which means that we interfere as little as possible with the winemaking process. It allows the flavours prevalent in that specific vineyard to ultimately express themselves in the wine. To achieve this goal, all grapes are whole-bunch pressed in our modern basket press, to extract the juice in the gentlest way. The juice is then allowed to settle for 12 hours after which it is racked from the settling tank into concrete eggs and also older 600 liter barrels.
We do not inoculate the juice with commercially cultivated yeast, but allow the wild yeast prevailing in the vineyard to ferment the juice. We also do not add acid or any enzymes during the process. The natural fermentation process took approximately 5 months to complete after which we left the wine in the barrels and eggs to develop further complexity. Only a light filtration was used prior to bottling.
AND A FEW PRAYERS TO MOTHER NATURE – THE 2023/24 GROWING SEASON
We were happy with excellent Winter conditions during 2023 season -receiving over 1000 mm of rain in 2023 but also saw extreme flooding during this period. The Winter days and nights were nice and cool to ensure that the vines were able to go into a proper dormancy. The dams were replenished and the groundwater reserves looked good.
Once Spring came a long it was accompanied by strong winds and consistently warmer days. Véraison was also about 10 days earlier than in 2022. The strong winds affected fruit set as well as the vineyard canopies and we could see that the vines were stressed.
We started picking our earlier blocks at around the 3rd week of January from the beginning of February the temperatures normalised and we only finished picking during the first week of March.
We saw a lot of bunches on the vines but the berries were tiny. With these tiny berries comes lovely concentration and bright acids. This vintage is definitely smaller but it is packed full of flavour.
A TASTING NOTE FROM THE GLASS OF NADIA LANGENEGGER
This Chenin Blanc flaunts pronounced minerality, pear ,floral aromas as well as a bit of honey on the nose. The wine has a full and rich mouthfeel because of the longer alcoholic fermentation that keeps the fine lees in suspension. With the combination of concrete eggs and barrels, it gives us a wine that has great structure but also a lovely freshness to it.
THE NUMBERS
Alc: 13 %
RS: 2 g/l
TA: 5.7 g/l