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| Black Elephant Vintners logo |
2013 Pinotage Top 10 winner ‘Back Road’ 2012 Pinotage comes
from a winery, Black Elephant Vintners, that I’d not previously heard of. Not surprising since it only came into being
in January 2013, founded by Franschhoek based financiers Kevin Swart and Raymond
Ndlovu.
It’s a tremendous achievement for a brand new winery to leap
into Pinotage stardom with their maiden vintage, but they do have the benefit
of a winemaker with form.
Winemaker/viticulturist is Jacques Wentzel, whom I met when
he was cellar-master at Schalk Burger’s Welbedacht winery. While there Jacques crafted
their 2009 Meerkat Pinotage which was a Top 10 winner in 2011.
Hand-picked grapes for The Back Roads Pinotage 2012 came from
a single vineyard of old vine Pinotage growing in “Die Perskoen” ward of
Wellington. Uncrushed grapes with 15%
whole bunches fermented spontaneously and aged for 15 months in used (5 - 8
year old) French oak barrels. Full details of the winemaking process and
technical information is on the website www.bevintners.co.za which went live
this week.
I look forward to tasting Black Elephant’s wines in the
future, and congratulations again to Jacques and the Black Elephant team.
.
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''Die Perdeskoen'' ward ,translation=horseshoe ,it makes a loop in the shape of a horseshoe +- 10km circle on the outskirts of Wellington at the base of the Hawekwa mountains.
ReplyDeleteThanks for the info, Riaan.
ReplyDelete