HANtv Episode CHAPTER INDEX:

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TASTING NOTES

Aromas: A touch of reduction straight out the bottle — not a fault, a decision — reading as smoked walnut, with the reductive sulphur compounds and the 30% new French oak arriving at the same answer from opposite directions. Underneath that, oatmeal and something I can only describe as leesy sourdough: spent yeast cells slowly breaking down and handing the wine a bready, savoury weight it did not have on day one. Then gravel dust, which I can taste and, thanks to my own research, am now contractually unable to explain to you. Give it a few minutes and that first reductive burst blows off, and something completely different walks in — delicate lemon candy, and behind it riper soft citrus. Mandarin, or as we would say here, naartjie. That is malolactic held down to a sliver: malic acid survived, so the citrus did too.

Palate: First thing that lands is the concentration. This is not a thin wine, and that is vineyard work arriving in the glass rather than anything clever done in the cellar. Then nutmeg off the oak — spice rather than sweetness, which is precisely what turning the toast down is supposed to buy you — followed by lemon candy again, ripe Seville orange and the naartjie carrying through. It sits firmly in the citrus zone, and where it sits is the interesting part: not the green lime you would expect from a cold Elgin Chardonnay, and emphatically not the peaches-and-cream of Napa, but a beautifully faceted citrus in between the two. There is lime cordial in here as well, though if this is green it is a sweeter, tropical green — honestly, closer to kiwi fruit. And a gentle roasted pineapple that had me puzzled until I looked at the map: the Compagniesdrift block is weathered granite on a north-facing slope, and north-facing in this hemisphere means sun. The finish hands you a little toast and marmalade, which is citrus cooked, sweetened and with the bitterness deliberately left in — the wine giving you back its own fruit on the way out.

TECHNICAL SPECS