Jaaa-bru 2019

100% Malbec. The vineyard grows on a slope of the Helderberg Mountain - not facing the ocean, but rather facing Stellenbosch. Malbec is a strange-looking grape when it’s ripe. When we pick, it always looks unripe. The berries are soft and juicy and the flesh is green in colour. We ferment this wine without any stems and age it in larger, older French Oak barrels for less than a year. It produces a fresh and elegant, yet complex wine.

Alex Starey, a great friend and fellow surfer farms this vineyard. If you see Alex in the water, in town or when he answers his phone he always greets “Jaaaa Bru?”. It’s South African slang and basically means “Yes, my brother?”. 

The label:

If you translate the word “Mal” from Afrikaans to English, it means “crazy” and “Bek” means “mouth”. And that was quite clearly the inspiration behind this label.