Nuwedam Chenin Blanc 2017

Awards

- This wine has not yet received a recognition

Vinification

With a little help of winemaking friends and their cellar space, all the fruit was hand harvested in the cool of the mornings, picking twice. The first component to add to the freshness and give the wine natural punch of acidity. The next batch (also the larger of the two) picked almost 14 days later saw the fruitier components come to fore, but on old bush vines even then we were only at 21,5 degrees balling. The gold green clusters were whole-bunch pressed, settled for 1 day and after racking to 6-year-old barrels, the wine was allowed to ferment with only the assistance of the native yeasts. We racked once after maloactic fermentation had taken place and kind of just left the wine to its own devices. All the components were blended at the end of October, after which we btl and labeled the wine.

Vineyard

Viticulture

In the 2016 season, after a fairly good harvest saw us farmers optimistic on a fairly good rain season. Winter started a month later and was fairly mild with dormancy only really 6 weeks towards the end of the season.

I remember distinctly once again to be inundated with a hand weed control program at the end of August.

The winter did however dose our vines with just enough rain, allowing the water to make its way deep within the decomposed granite to the subterranean layers of clay – where it is stored and accessed by the roots in the heat of a Swartland summer, allowing the fruit to ripen and the vine to build enough reserves for the next year.

A sort of normal growing season ensued with good fruit development, however the on and off “irrigational“ showers we are used to here in the Swartland stayed away. Harvest was once again earlier than normal (about 2-3 weeks).

The vines cropped a sustainable yield with an almost unheard of 5 tons per hectare.