Counting down to uncorking my first Garagiste style Shiraz ….
I am known as a garagiste winemaker – no drugs, no guns ….
It all started in April 2009 when I embarked on one of my life’s ambitions and that was to make my own wine. Under the skillful and kind guidance, of garagiste winemaker, William Everson and loads of support and encouragement from family and friends, I spent 10 days in the Elgin/Grabouw valley fulfilling that dream.
The grapes for our 2009 Shiraz were brought from the Belfield farm, situated in Elgin Valley, near the Peregrino farm store.
Belfield farm has some 4 1/2 hectares of grapes, mainly made up of the Shiraz, Cabernet Sauvignon and Merlot. The Shiraz varietal makes up a 1 1/2 hectares of the farm and the age fo the Shiraz vines are four years old.
Let me tell you how the wine progressed …….
After six months in oak barrels, the wood integration is still minor, with the fruit flavours upfront. The wine elegant, showing typical Elgin characters and will spend another 18 months in the barrel before developing its full potential.
After a year and a bit the wine was showing lots of structure, with good tannins and is going to be a bigger wine than we expected. Nice balance on the acid and the wine must still soften. The wine is high in natural acidity because the grapes are from a cooler area. The natural acidity of the wine will age the wine better and will give it longer life in the bottle.
After 20 months it was time to blend the wines. The Belfield Shiraz on taste showed lots of vanilla, toffee and wood on the nose. the Mourvedre had more meaty flavours, with good fruits. We believe that the 2% of Mourvedre blended with the Shiraz will give the Shiraz life 1
The blend gets black pastel sweet smell on the nose and black fruit on the taste, good tannins, which gives it a bit of body and means the wine will age well.
23 months on the 09 March 2011, we bottled the blend. Registration no. 149509
The launch of Scholtz Landing took place on Sunday 6 November 2011, at a wonderful lunchtime function in Newlands, amongst friends 1