The last of our red wines have been put into barrel and a first sensory assessment suggests a vintage with remarkable depth and vibrancy. After dealing with the vagaries of drought, flooding and a pandemic over the last couple of years, we were finally blessed with a quintessential Helderberg vintage. The season was shaped by a very cold and wet winter which saw a later bud-burst than the preceding year. With the absence of any heat waves and cooler than usual weather in February, conditions were ideal for slow ripening and flavour development. A low diurnal temperature range during this tim…

Most South African wine regions had an excellent winter season with sustained low temperatures and high rainfall. Spring was earlier than usual, with the first bud breaks around 10 days earlier than the previous season; however, in late Sept we were hit with torrential downpours and strong winds. The accompanying floods damaged infrastructure and made vineyards on clay soils inaccessible. Despite the unique challenges in spring, we were very optimistic on the quality of the fruit. As usual, our harvest commenced with the Maritime block of Chenin Blanc in late January. February was characteri…

We are extremely happy with the quality of the 2022 harvest and if post malolactic tasting samples are anything to go by, we can expect some rocking wines. But we couldn't do what we do, without the help of a great team. Wine-making, like heavy-metal music, is a collective effort. Sure, you need drums, a couple of guitars and a frontman with a decent schtick but that’s just the bare minimum. Great songs are a wicked brew of influences and inputs and wine is no different. Decisions that influence the aesthetic of a wine – harvest dates, fermentation temperatures, extraction times and the choi…