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Winemaking is a spectrum. At an industrial level, there are wine technicians who know enough about frankenyeasts, yeast nutrients, oak additives, enzymes, filters, and settling agents to vinify and blend wines that will taste identical year after year, regardless of what the weather was like of the relevant vineyards. They vinifical illusions; creations that claim to express a vintage that never was.

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On the opposite end of the spectrum, there are winemakers who absorbe each vintage, hailstones and all, embracing every bite of frost, or wave of heat, and faithfully doing nothing to the grapes other than pick them and wait for them to rot. “This is the vintage!”, they declare, and may no man say otherwise. The wine will be what the wine will be, and any lack of palatability will be worn as the equivalent of a vinous pullitzer prize, awarded to said winemaker for their unswerving dedication to “the truth”, without any concern for their own safety, or the safety of their patrons.

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Somewhere in the middle is a gang of winemakers who look for the best elements of every vintage, and seek to highlight those in the resulting wine. Was the vintage exceptionally cool? Well, then embrace the freshness! What it warm and dry? Well, then highlight the fruit and power! The winemaker is a faithful student of the unfolding vintage in play, but they refuse to be helpless victims against any pernicious weather sprites.

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Today’s wine is made by a member of this latter category, and the end result expresses a delightful combination of vintage specifics and personal winemaking vision.

But 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 vanguard opens with some fresh-cut apricot, oatmeal, and salty sourdough. With time in the glass, richer peach fruit emerges, along with a hint of more subtropical maroela fruit. Very gentle oak spice shows itself as the wine warms.

👄 Palate is a lovely mix of bright apricot fruit, gentle nutmeg spice, tart seville citrus and then – especially as the wine warms in the glass, there is a bit of sweeter peach that emerges.

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🔬 Wine of origin Stellenbosch – Polkadraai ward. Winemaker Narina Cloete. Fruit was hand-harvested in the first few days of February and whole-bunch pressed, before being naturally settled over 24 hours. All juice was fermented in 228-litre french barrels, with the dead yeast cells being stirred up every second day after fermentation. Once the barrel maturation phase begins, the wine was only stirred every two weeks. 30% new oak was used.

| Alc 13.7% | Sugar 1.9g/l | Acid 6.9 | 3.41g/l |