The harvest PDF Print E-mail

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During harvest time, a team of 40 peoples, pick and sort the grapes in the vineyards.   The grapes are exclusively picked by end at the coolest time of the day. To preserve all the aromas, we are only using 15kg creates. When the grapes arrive to the cellar, we keep the harvest in a cooling room before starting to crushing.
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Cellar PDF Print E-mail

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The cellar is located in Hermanus, on the top of Hemel-en-Aarde valley. Situated on the slope of Galpin Peak mountains, the building has been made for "gravity" winemaking process: my aim is to make wine as natural as possible.

Early in the morning, the grapes are picked by hand on 15kg crates, then they are stored in a cooling room on the top of the building. When the grapes are cold, we start to process to the grapes sorting. We first sort the grapes before the destamer (no crushing), then the berries go on a vibrating table.

After been sorted, the berries goes straight to a satellite tank which can be moved on the top of every fermenting tank .

 

 

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Pressing PDF Print E-mail
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The fermentation are 100% natural with wild yeast. As we are working with cold grapes, the fermentation start slowly so we have natural cold maceration. 
 
I never do any "pumping over" to preserve the fruit. I only do a short "punching down" by hand, once a day.
 
When the fermentation is almost finished, we just have to move the press under the tank to empty it. Then it goes by gravity again into the barrel cellar where the wines finish slowly their fermentation.
    

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Aging PDF Print E-mail
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After the maceration, the wines are aged in 900 litres french oak barrels from Burgundy. The white wines stay for a minimum of 12 months and the red wines stay 18 months. After the aging, we make the blends and we keep the wines for another 6 months in tank.


 
Export PDF Print E-mail
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After the bottling, the wines are labelled and delivered to restaurants and wine shop in South Africa. A part of the production is exported to France, UK, Holland, Belgium, Luxemburg, Germany and even few cases to the USA!