2022 Radford Dale Vinum Pinotage

Deep purple and with ruby rim. Ripe strawberries and mulberry with interestingly perfumed rosewater aromas indicate varietal expression. Wild berry compote and dark forest fruits delight on the medium palate, before grippy tannins bring the wine to a clean, fresh finish.

The grapes for this wine are predominantly from a vineyard
located in the northern part of the Stellenbosch region and a
quarter of a century old. As is typical in our region, the alluvial
soil in this vineyard contains a high proportion of decomposing
granite, which comes from the magnificent mountains
surrounding. Harvest was almost 2 weeks later than some of the
recent hotter vintages, and the crop smaller, but with better
acidity. As usual, the grapes were harvested by hand, early in the
morning, into 20kg lug boxes to avoid any crushing and then
transported to our cellar.
IN THE CELLAR
At the cellar, the grapes were manually sorted to ensure only
pristine bunches were processed. Our primary objective with this
wine was to wild ferment, importantly leading with carbonic
maceration, so as to unlock and reveal the hidden side of
Pinotage. This whole berry, natural fermentation took place in
open-top, 600L oak demi-muids, for a very soft extraction of
colour, flavour and tannin. Once the alcoholic fermentation had
finished, we transferred the pomace to our press, merely for
draining purposes and where the wine was gently removed from
the skins and then moved into small, Burgundian barrels (228L
and 300L), an equal mix of 2nd, 3rd & 4th fill for malolactic
fermentation and maturation. No new oak was used as we
wanted the wine to exhibit its freshness while adding texture and
complexity.