Chenin Blanc

The FALSE BAY CHENIN BLANC vineyard is not the sort of vineyard that will win prizes for appearances. You will be shocked if you expect neat monocultural rows of regimented wines, standing in gleaming bare earth. What makes these vineyards so exciting for us is the fact that fine and distinctive adventures in terroir are to be found, rather than ultra-ripe, super extracted fruit. The decomposed granite characteristics of the Paardenberg Mountain seem to deliver a wine of structural finesse and minerality, more terroir driven than the Swartland in general. The vines are left to struggle for what water they can find – generally, thanks to an element of retentive clay, there is enough, yet in drier years our response might have to be to drop some crop (not that there was much to start with). Fortunately, more often than not, one of nature’s kindnesses here is a well-timed rainfall in December, prior to veraison