Weathered Hands Pinotage

Vinification

The grapes were hand-picked in the early morning and force-cooled to 4 °C. The fermentation grapes were bunch-sorted, de-stemmed and berry-sorted on vibration tables by 25 highly trained staff members. Half of the berries were kept whole while the remaining berries were crushed gently into a satellite tank and deposited into an open fermenter. The must was de-juiced by 8% and given a cold soak of 6 days at 9 °C protected by a CO 2 blanket. The juice was pumped over twice daily during this period. The tanks were then heated to 16 °C and fermentation allowed to start naturally. The fermentation temperature was allowed to peak at 28 °C. The fermenting cap was manually punched down three times daily with one additional pump-over per day. After fermentation the wine was drained into 55% new and 45% second-fill Allier French oak barrels. The press fraction was kept separate. Malolactic fermentation was completed in the barrels. Care was taken during the fermentation process not to over-extract this old-vine Pinotage. After malolactic fermentation the wine was given a low sulphur dose and left on its lees for 10 months. The wine was then racked, blended and returned to barrels. After a total of 22 months in barrel the wine was racked and filtered through a coarse sheet filter. Bottling was done with a fine sheet filtration.

Total Production: 2670 Bottles