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The Old Road Wine Company is DGB’s bid to capture the imagination of South African wine adventurers. They have secured rights to a number of really fascinating vineyards – mostly in the Franschhoek area, which communicate the beauty not only of incredibly old vines (as seen in their Grand Mere Old Vine Semillon, and their Stone Trail Old Vine Chenin Blanc), but also the joys of high-altitude vineyards, as expressed through both their Pepper Wind Syrah (Wine of Origin Franschoek) and today’s wine of the day – the Old Road 12 Mile Syrah (from the Paardeberg in the Swartland).

Both Syrahs are produced from fruit grown at over 300m ASL, with this 12 Mile Syrah coming from a vineyard that touches on 420m ASL.
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Now, if you have yet to sign up for your Monthly HanDrinksSolo Wine Subscription then you’ll have to hunt this wine down in your own time. But until then, here are my tasting notes and some technical specs:

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👃🏼 The nose starts out fairly brooding, with roasted black plum, and some quite articulate blackberry…but these fruit elements are livened up by hints of clove spice, and gentle lavender. There’s a savoury touch to it as well; perhaps olive tapenade, a touch of white pepper and some barrel-inspired cedar.

👄 The wine is not a heavy weight, but it is intense. And that intensity comes more from a lovely bit of tension between those riper blackberry and plum elements, against some delightfully surprising brighter red fruit that I missed on the nose. mostly cherry and raspberry So it’s the contrast between the red fruit and black fruit that makes it arresting. Then the tannins are still quite firm, so this wine is by no means a push over, and there’s that spicy cedar wood note again on the tail which keeps things interesting. 

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Wine of Origin Swartland. 100% Syrah The vines are planted on West and North-west facing slopes at roughly 400m ASL.
In the cellar, fermentation takes place in large open-top oak fermenters, with 15% of the grapes being fermented with their stems. Malolactic conversion takes place in 500-litre French barrels, and the final wine is then matured in 2nd and 3rd fill barrels for a total of nine months.
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| Alc 13.5% | RS 2.5g/l | TA 5.7g/l | pH 3.53 |