33.333 2014

A picture of a Organically farmed Syrah vineyard in the Voor-Paardeberg showing exposure to a 33.33333% stem component...

The Story:

A single vineyard Syrah from the Voor-Paardeberg. When you make Shiraz in a more European style the idea is to present the vineyard and the grapes in as pure a way as possible, not interfering with the taste of the grapes at all.

To take terroir to the next level, one wants to put everything that comes from the vineyard into the wine. So why remove the stems? It is part of the grapes and terroir. So I decided to do a trial in 2014. The grapes for this wine comes from a Organically farmed vineyard in the Voor-Paardeberg. When we picked the grapes, I took a bunch and stripped the stem clean. I tasted the berries, but also ate the stem. Pure spice, so interesting. So my thoughts were: If I ferment this wine with about 30% of the stems in the wine (you call this whole bunch fermentation) I could get some of that exciting spice into the Syrah. So I chucked 33.33333% of the grapes into a fermentation vessel and crushed it with my feet.

The other grapes I de-stemmed (took the stems out) and fermented it in a open-top fermentation vessel. I blended it afterwards and took it to a old 700 liter barrel. It aged there for 15 months and was put to bottle. The label is a pencil sketch I did on a piece of paper I deliberately spilled a cup of tea on. It is a picture of a camera taking a shot of a stem. But only 33.333333 % of the lens is exposed to the stem. The rest is blocked out. Showing 33.33333% exposure to the stem. Last week I bottled the next vintage of this specific vineyard which will be called 100.00000 .... 100% whole bunch fermented. And it made SUCH a huge impact on the wine… but you will have to wait 6 months to compare.