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We often talk a big game about how the wild, wet, cold and inhospitable Agulhas Wine Triangle makes epic wines, because everyone knows that a tortured soul pours out the purest inspiration. But the flip side of that is unfortunately that, sometimes, a tortured soul just can’t handle the torture, and so it seeks to cast off it’s mortal shell completely. One doesn’t need to be an art historian to know how often that plays out with human beings, so it should come as no surprise that this happens with vines as well.

The vines that provided the wine of the day – the Strandveld Pofadderbos Sauvignon Blanc 2022 – have stood by in the blistering cold as they’ve watched their comrades slowly give up the ghost – most often due to “dead arm disease” – an affliction to which Sauvignon Blanc vines are particularly prone. The result of this persistent blight is that what was once a single vineyard wine and reverted to it’s former state of being a multi-vineyard vine.

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BUT…while this may seem like a defeat, Strandveld cellarmaster has not been caught flatfooted, and so the wine in the bottle today is the result of two developing blocks; each with their own exciting attributes. Of course, if you have yet to sign up for your Monthly HanDrinksSolo Wine Subscription then you won’t be able to put the wine through its paces to see how the vines are performing. So, until you’ve hunted this wine down in your own time, I’ve left my tasting notes and some technical specs:

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👃🏼  Such a beautifully open nose of chalk dust, elderflower, passion fruit, hint of savoury white asparagus

👄 The mouthfeel is supremely elegant, dry in style, quite textured. Dry lime pith palate carries sweeter passion fruit, homemade lemonade, with hints of that salted asparagus spear coming up from beneath the fruit. Almost like the salted rim on a mojito glass. Lemon rind abounds on the finish.
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🔬 Wine of origin Elim. Fruit is harvested from vines that are 19 years old on a south-east facing block, surrounded by fynbos.  The block is made up of 100% SB316 Sauvignon Blanc clones and yielded a rather small but healthy crop of 3.9tons/ha during the 2022 vintage. The fruit was pressed and cold fermented in stainless steel tanks, inoculated with VL3 and Q5 yeast strains, and then left on it’s lees for 5 months.

| alc 13.23% | RS 1.9g/l | TA 6.5g/l | pH 3.15 |