The Grangehurst

The 2009 has just landed - we were restricted to only 60 bottles of this vintage!

Cabernet Sauvignon (60%) Merlot (21%) Petit Verdot (19%)

ORIGIN
All the vineyards are in the coastal part of Stellenbosch and the quality of the grapes is positively
influenced by the cool southerly summer sea breezes that blow across False Bay. The Cabernet
Sauvignon vineyard and one of the Merlot vineyards are trellised. The other Merlot and the Petit
Verdot are bush vines.

HARVEST DATES
The Cabernet Sauvignon grapes from “Sunset Vineyard” were harvested between the 12th
February and 11th March. The Merlot – from two different vineyards – was on 19th February and
12th March. The Petit Verdot was harvested on 3rd March.

FERMENTATION
The grapes were harvested by hand into lug baskets (± 18 kg per basket); sorting of grapes prior
to destemming and hand sorting again between the destemmer and crusher; then crushed (±
50% whole berries) and pumped to open fermenters; manual punchdowns (pigeage) 4 to 6 times
per day for the duration of fermentation; between 7 and 16 days on skins, then drawn off and
pressed using wooden basket presses; free-run and press wines blended and racked to 225 litre
barrels; malolactic fermentation in barrels; barrel to barrel and barrel to tank rackings to clarify
the wine – no filtration prior to racking to the bottling tanks.

CLARIFICATION
This wine was clarified according to the natural settling and racking method, which does not
involve the use of any fining agents, centrifuges or filters – a natural, unhurried method of
clarifying wine.

BARREL MATURATION
Matured in French oak barrels for 35 months.

BOTTLING
The 14 barrels that were selected for this reserve wine were racked and blended into a stainless
steel tank. After a period of settling, the wine was racked again into the stainless steel bottling
tanks from where it flowed by gravity via a cartridge filter into the filler – 3,576 x 750ml bottles
and 363 x 1.5 L magnums.
WINE ANALYSIS
Alcohol: 14,73 % by volume (14.5% on label)
Residual Sugar: 2.3 g/l
Total Acidity: 5.9 g/l
pH: 3.51

TASTING NOTES
Dark ruby with garnet edge; complex aromas and flavours of black and red berries, cassis and
violets with some mocha and cedar from the barrels. A big, intense wine for special occasions.
Recommended drinking 2016 to 2026 (if correctly cellared).