Country: South Africa
Region: Franschhoek and the Coastal Region
Grape: Cinsault
Viticulture: Organic Farming
Taken from a block of organically-farmed, dry-grown bush-vine Cinsault grown on the Agter-Paarl’s mineral seams. The fruit was picked at a ripeness optimal for this rosé’s natural acidity, in the cool of dawn and trucked up the road to Wildeberg. The fruit harvested just made a full single press, which was then gently squeezed to old French oak demi-muids for natural fermentation. The colour comes just from that light press and spends no further time on skins.
Pale, lightly savoury Rose. Old oak wraps this dry, mineral wine in a delicate creamieness.
Winemaking by JD Rossouw. The Wildeberg farms sits in the untamed mountain above Franschoek. An established wine region for some 350 years, sensible generations never thought to plant a vine here until a happy band of idealists recently craned their necks up at this hillside and, dizzy with hope, decided to give it a go. Franschhoek is on the very edge of the south-eastern corner of the Cape’s venerable Coastal Region, indeed Wildeberg’s property border runs over the top of the mountain where the Coastal Region gives way to the baboon-strewn road to Grabouw and the wider Western Cape.