Deep, purple core with wide, bright, bluish tinged rim. Rich, ripe, berry fruit nose with lots of ripe, red plum.  Some floral notes in the background including violets and spring blossoms.  Rich and full in the mouth with tremendous youthful vigour. Layers of berry fruit with developing spice including pepper, cinnamon and vanilla. Oak hardly shows yet it must have done it’s job to have such elegance and roundness at this early age. Very attractive now yet loads of development potential.

Technical Detail
Alcohol           14.5  %vol
pH                   3.7
RS                    2 g/l
Total acid       5.4 g/l
Appellation    Stellenbosch

In the Vineyard
These vineyards are situated on the farm DeMorgenzon in the Stellenboschkloof. Soils are mostly weathered granite which give the resultant wines a natural exuberance and youthful vigour. Planted in 2004 the trellised vineyard is managed to ensured natural high acidity and full flavour concentration. The yield was  8 tons per hectare.

In the Cellar
The Syrah was manually harvested and destalked into stainless steel fermentation tanks. The juice and skins were left for two days to cold soak before fermentation. A small percentage of bunches were fermented without destalking. Natural fermentation followed with a slight extended maceration on the skins to stabilize the colour and give the wine palate length. Fermentation temperatures were kept between 22°C and 27°C with a combination of punch downs and gentle pump overs to extract colour and flavour from the skins. After fermentation the wine was pressed off the skins and malolactic fermentation was completed in barrel. The wine spent a further 11 months in barrel, predominantly French oak (15% new wood).

Ageing Potential
This wine is drinking very well now, will improve over the next  six years.