BUT WHY 2021 vs. 2022 - Ceres Plateaux

If you want to get to the BUT WHY vineyard, I suggest you pack some food for the journey … You’ll be driving North on the R44 from my winery in Somerset West, through Stellenbosch and Wellington (direction Porterville) and eventually get to the Tulbach mountain pass. Continuing straight, you’ll pass through the Ceres Mountain Pass, then the town of Ceres, then the quaint Prince Alfred Hamlet up into the Gydo Pass where you'll turn left into the Witzenberg Mountain Pass. If you continue through the pass all the way to the top, you'll arrive at the Ceres Plateaux. Continue driving … until the tar turns to gravel. Right THERE, approximately 3 hours later (without stops), you'll find the origin of the Olifants River and ... BUT WHY - a lone, little, ungrafted (makstok) Cabernet Sauvignon vineyard.

My first words when I saw this vineyard in 2015 were: “BUT WHY would anybody think of planting Cabernet so high above sea-level?” Normally, height above sea-level equals cooler temperatures during ripening, and it’s common knowledge that the biggest challenge for Cabernet producers is unripe, green tannins. 

But there was something I had yet to learn. The site’s radiation levels (intensity of sunlight) are off-the-charts high - not the temperature... the sunlight! Picture yourself standing on a snow-covered slope high on the Alps in Switzerland. On a clear day the sunlight is warm and intense, but the temperatures are still low. Same thing.

And if you combine these conditions with very cold night temperatures, you get a longer hang time (the time the grapes spend attached to the vine). The grapes slowly accumulate sugar whilst absorbing massive amounts of sunlight, and sunlight is what ripens. When we then pick mid to late April, the grapes are mature with ripe tannins and still high acidity.

BUT WHY 2021 - we picked on 13 April 2021. The wine ended up with an alcohol of 14% on the label and an acid of 5.65 g/l. It is elegantly restrained, chalky and fine. 2021 was a wetter, cooler year and winter rains came early - which forced an earlier pick than usual.

BUT WHY 2022 - we picked on 21 April 2022, which is super late! The winter rain stayed away a bit longer so we picked 8 days later than the 2021. It was a dryer, warmer year but the vines maintained acidity and freshness at a 6.01 g/l acid in the final wine. Riper fruit with more chunky, dry tannins - a bit coarser than the 2021. More gutsy, but still very much cool climate Cabernet. It is a bit higher in alcohol at 14.5% on the label.

Winemaking for both wines were the same: 100% de-stem, fermented spontaneously in open top fermenters, only punchdowns(no pump-overs), left on the skins for 3 weeks and pressed to barrel (35% new wood) and left for 18 months in oak.