Stables: Best ever KZN vintage

The Stables Wine Estate, located northwest of Durban many hundreds of miles north of the traditional Cape winelands , reports that the 2010 vintage is one of their best ever thanks to ideal hot weather conditions over KwaZulu-Natal during the first few months of the year.

"It has been absolutely classic this year!" reports winemaker Tiny van Niekerk. "We didn't really have a spring - we went straight from winter into summer with some early rains, after which it has been hot and dry. This has been perfect for the ripening of the grapes, and we have had absolutely no rot to deal with. And as a result we have not sprayed to counter the risk of rot as we generally have to"

We can look forward to really big reds from 2010. Those that will recall our epic 2006 Pinotage can look forward to more of the same, and maybe even better."

"Our Pinotage harvest has been our biggest ever, small grapes which provided plenty of colour extraction and intense fruit characteristics,"

Tiny van Niekerk confirmed that Stable would be producing a 2010 Pinotage Clariet rose wine. The 2006 Clariet was the first ever KZN wine to receive SAWIS certification for which the Wine of Origin KwaZulu Natal appellation had to be created. (see here)

"People loved it," said van Niekerk and they have been bugging me to make another vintage of the Clariet. We pulled off the free-run after six hours, which had great colour and flavour."


.