Radford Dale Vinum Chenin Blanc 2022

Pale straw with a touch of gold around the rim. Lightly spiced pear and honeydew melon meld together and combine with wet slate to create an enticing nose. The pallet has understated notes of ginger, citrus and white peach, with a hint of salinity and mirrors the nose.

The gnarled, old bush vines that produce this truly characterful Chenin Blanc are planted in some of the purest granite soils on the foothills of the magnificent Helderberg Mountain, in Stellenbosch. The vines are mainly grown under dryland conditions, meaning they are not irrigated, and therefore their roots plunge meters into the granite subsoil in search of moisture. The altitude of the vineyards, the steep South-East facing slope, and the proximity to Ocean-facing False Bay, on the Southern tip of Africa, mean that these vines are well exposed and cooled by winds that come off the cold ocean, during the long, hot summer. These factors combine to produce a wonderfully fresh and vivacious expression of what is to us, the Cape’s greatest grape.

Grapes were picked by hand as well as manually sorted to ensure that we maintain the purity of varietal expression for which this wine has become known. Gentle pressing in a pneumatic bag press, with the extracted juice moved to barrel.

A combination of 2500L Foudre, 500L, 300L, and 228L barrels for alcoholic fermentation. The barrels used are predominantly 2nd to 6th fill French oak, of Burgundian cooperages. Whilst the Foudre is of tight-grain, Austrian origin. The usage of unintrusive oaking promotes optimal varietal expression.