Finally released

Todays blog are our winemaker Sydney's words.

Being the spirited people we are at Oude Wellington, we tend to have a cheery glass of wine or two in the evenings while watching the sunset with it's pastel rays that infuse the sky before passing into the underworld behind the Paarl Mountains.
Sitting beneath the historic gable of Oude Wellington Manor, on the veranda, we envisioned a wine that would offer an experience to accompany this wonderful atmosphere.

Like we pair food with wine, we set out to pair our fond sunset social with an appropriate wine. The problem we had though was that this wine we sought, which we could almost feel in our soul, could not be found. Evening after evening we set out on the same journey, always to come up with imperfections.

We tried to imagine what this wine could be like and so after many sunsets and many verses spoken we endeavored to try and discover what it may be that which we lacked and so it came to pass that we turned our social senses to what we thought may be good.

We did not have much time, as this was mid-January and the harvest was on our doorstep and so a few more sunsets, a few more glasses of wine and a hive of conversation about a thing we could not completely comprehend we finally came to a sort of theory.

We determined that this perfect wine to pair with our evening delights should at least share properties of crispiness, softness, lightness and suppleness but it should not be flat. That it should be a white wine for summer and in some way be like a Sauvignon Blanc or light-style unwooded Chardonnay, but this was all too much to ask for in one wine. How does one do this, we thought?

The problem with Sauvignon Blanc is that it is far too acidic and generally far too aromatic. This would not be appropriate for our evening social wine paired with this awesome and wonderful setting. Like food with wine, we wanted the wine to feel like a natural part of who we were and a part of what we were experiencing.

Chardonnay on the other hand was just far too rich and very much a "one glass full" type wine! That just wouldn't do, but Chardonnay is a naturally lower acid wine compared to Sauvignon. It was almost like we needed the best of both personalities.

The other problem with most wines is the alcohol content. We most definitely did not want to pass out before the sun had set!

We set ourself goals to avoid these pitfalls and so we stamped out a plan. The plan was to use our organically grown Chardonnay with it's potentially lower acidity and pick it earlier. This would give us lower alcohol levels and avoid over-richness or ripeness. In the cellar we then treat the Chardonnay as if it were Sauvignon Blanc and ferment it accordingly. This was all theory and very untested ground.

We were not sure how it would all turn out, but at least we resolved to drink it all, even if it flopped!

It all sounded like a good plan! Well, like all things, it's easy to dream about something than to actually realize it.

Our first obstacle was unripe tannins. How do we get passed that? Ok, so there is maybe a solution. Let us crush the berries and use only the free run juice but that is wasteful! There is so much juice still in the skins. Ok, so what we can do is make a secondary wine which has still got lower alcohol and use it as a blended partner for one Cap Classic. Brilliant! Ok, now we have it all sassed. Low tannin, low alcohol with clear setting we have suppleness and finesse. It all looks good to go. All we would then need to do is treat it as if it were a Sauvignon Blanc in the cellar. Right!

Not so fast! If you want to make Sauvignon Blanc, you need good cooling in order to make a crisp wine with lower glycerol development so that the wine is not too heavy. Some Sauvignons are fermented at higher temperature for ageing purposes but this is definitely not the route we wanted to take. Our goal was light, crisp and fresh with finesse.

The problem was that the cooling system at Oude Wellington was geared towards red fermentation, thus higher temperature fermentation.

It was too late to change the system. The grapes were coming in. The picking contractor was becoming impatient and I was sitting shoulder-high in grapes, not quite sure where to look for an answer.

The solution finally came from the same source as the grapes. The vineyard.

Instead of installing a new set of fixed cooling lines, we rigged up a temporary solution using vineyard irrigation pipes. After a half day quick fix we were ready to roll!

We crushed the berries off, drained the juice immediately to a tank, chilled the juice to 5 C and settled for 2 days until the juice was crystal clear. We racked the juice to a new tank, leaving the hard-settled solids behind and then brought the temperature of the crystal clear must to 15 C. We innoculated the tank with a european yeast "Eno Aroma K7", a good gentle fermenter which promised elegance for the final wine.

As the wine started to ferment we brought the temperature of the wine gently down to a constant 12 C. The wine gradually fermented for a period of 3 weeks at which time the sugar level had dropped to 5.8g/liter natural sugar.

Acidity and sugar have an inseparable marriage and so it is important to harmonize the natural sugar with the acidity in the wine.

The wine was racked and stabilized and on doing this we excitedly discovered the first signs of what we set out to achieve.

There was still one more major hurdle to pass. Put the wine into the bottle without breaking it!

Bottling is the single most important step in all of wine making! It is the final part of making wine. Do it wrong and you have wasted time, money and effort.

We chose to have full control and bottle in-house. The wine was given a light bulk filtration and then sterile filtered to bottle. After bottling the wine goes into a phase called bottle shock. This can last a day to a year. It is always a nerve-wrecking thing, waiting to see if all your hard work paid off. We were lucky, only a week and it was showing a promise of more than we expected.

We were pleasantly surprised when we received approval from the wine and spirits board with the note that said "not typical cultivars character". This was of course a cause for celebration. We achieved our goal and had created something very special. After all, we married the best part of 2 worlds, Chardonnay and Sauvignon Blanc and all from only a single cultivar Chardonnay.

We cracked open a few bottles at sunset with a crowd on the veranda under the historic gable of Oude Wellington, to celebrate. We realized what we sought to achieve and paired this new wine with our awesome evening experience!

by Sydney Burke