The Swartland is a beautiful and wild place. The landscape is a series of rolling hills with a few significant outcrops of rock that form the Paardeberg, Kasteelberg and Piketberg mountains. It is not an easy place to establish vines, and is a region that has as much of an influence on the vineyards and people who farm there as the people have on the land itself. This brings to mind what film director David von Ancken has to say about the old American West: “The primal, universal power of the landscape strips away everything but the truth of men’s souls.”

The secret to our Straw Wine is harvesting Chenin grapes at normal ripeness levels to capture a healthy acidity. The grapes are dried outside in the shade until they are half raisined, concentrating flavours, acidity and sugar into a super intense, but balanced treat. Fermentation is in old French barrels with indigenous yeasts and can last up to a year. The wine is bottled unfiltered and unfined.

The Swartland is blessed with an abundance of old vine Chenin and we use this as the backbone of our white blend. We then add several small parcels of Mediterranean varieties for complexity, balance and aromatic lift. The grapes come from vineyard parcels in different parts of the Swartland: the stony Shale and Schist based soils of the Kasteelberg, the decomposed Granite of the Paardeberg and the rolling, iron-rich hills west of Malmesbury.

Fermentation is in barrel with indigenous yeasts and the wine is aged for 11 months in French oak barrels, 20% new.