Radford Dale Vinum Pinotage 2022

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.

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 barrels

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.