South Africa

Platter 4.5 stars. WINEMAKER’S NOTES WINEMAKER: CRAIG MCNAUGHT The name pays homage to the Roman poet, Ovid, who is quoted on the front label of this wine: “Chance is always powerful. Let your hook be always cast; in the pool where you least expect it there will be a fish.” Despite a really tough vintage in 2018, this wine shines through. Always an early ripener, our Tempranillo was harvested in the first week in February, just before the searing heat we experienced later on that Summer. As has become protocol with this wine, we meticulously hand-picked, hand-sorted and destemmed each bunch before a 6 day pre-ferment cold...

VITICULTURE Sourced from a 1-hectare vineyard at Fijndraai in Stellenbosch on heavily de-composed granite soils and just 4 km from False Bay. The vineyard is North-West facing and managed by Chris Williams. Planted in 2005, the Foundry Grenache Noir 2020 is the fourth vintage. The vineyard is starting to come into its own in terms of quality and site expression. The vines are trellised which allows us to manage the canopy precisely to enhance fruit, complexity and balance. A small crop was ripened under the perfect conditions of 2020 and harvested at modest sugar levels, but at full flavour ripeness to ensure lower alcohol but...

VITICULTURE This is the first vintage from our own vineyards in the Voor Paardeberg, planted in 2000. The vineyards are planted on low vigour, well-drained, granitic origin soils. The vines are managed to retain a healthy balance between grape production and growth, and the crop was reduced to 5.5 tons per hectare. The mature vines are naturally low yielding, and all damaged or unripe grapes were removed before harvest. The fruit was uniformly ripe and was picked on the basis of analysis, taste and vine physiology. VINIFICATION The grapes were partially de-stemmed with approximately 40% remaining as whole bunches directly into custom-made...