“Our Piekenierskloof Grenache is made is made from two neighbouring dryland bush vine sites – the oldest planted in 1987 – on Table Mountain sandstone soils around 750m altitude in the Citrusdal mountains.”

Gentle and minimum intervention with a ‘hands-off ’ approach to reflect the terroir of the Citrusdal mountais. After hand picking in the early morning, bunches were destemmed into small fermenting tanks keeping 20% 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 postfermentation 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. Total time in barrel: 16 months. No fining. Bottled in August 2023.

ANALYSIS: ALC 13.05% | RS 2.0 g/l | TA 5.1 g/l | pH 3.54