All fruit was sourced from our own vineyard – located within the coolest, westernmost reaches of the Casablanca Valley. Sourced blocks planted on a mixture of grey clay and sandy/yellow clays with an average vine age of 15 to 19 years. Cropped at an average of 5 tonnes per hectare (2 t/acre).
Upon arrival at the winery all grapes were first destemmed and crushed to stainless steel tanks (via a chiller in order to drop the temperature to 1ºC or 34ºF) where they were then left to cold soak for 114 hours (almost five days). Following this time the free-run juice was drained by gravity from the tanks. The remaining skins and juice were then dug-out and gently squeezed using pneumatic presses in order to separate light from hard pressings. The resulting juices were then left to cold settle (at 10ºC/50ºF) for 4 days following which time the juice was racked to stainless steel tanks, inoculated with selected yeasts and gravity fed to a mixture of new (35%) and used (65%) French oak barrels where it was fermented during a period of 20 to 40 days (with temperatures peaking at around 20ºC/68ºF). After fermentation had finished the barrels were sulphured at which point battonage (or manual lees stirring) was carried out weekly for the following nine months. After a total of 10 months in barrel the wine was gently nitrogen racked to tank at which point it cold stabilised, filtered and bottled.