Rabbitsfoot 2019

Rabbitsfoot does not taste like traditional Sauvignon blanc at all. It is ripe, barrel-fermented and aged. An awesome, very different expression of South African Sauvignon Blanc.

The Story : 

The vines grow very high on the Helderberg mountain in Stellenbosch. The owner of the vineyard makes a natural, sweet wine from it and has a very specific way of doing this. It boils down to him pinching the stems of the bunches in order for the grapes to dry while hanging on the vine. In this process, the berries lose water and flavour, acid and sugar concentrate. They then harvest the raisiny berries and end up with a natural sweet white wine.

Unfortunately, though, it seems that not only humans have a sweet tooth. The baboons love the sweet berries and come down from the mountain and feast on the top part of the vineyard. The farmer therefore had a problem. He needed a buffer between his precious sweet stuff and the mountain baboons and decided to give me the top part of this awesome vineyard (on the flat top section).

I pick this early in the season, leaving no berries on the vines. This fools the baboons into thinking that there are no grapes left on the bottom part of the vines either. This strategy worked well for a couple of years but started to change in 2019. The baboons realised what we were doing and broke through the buffer zone to strike the bottom section of the vineyard - making the 2019 most likely the last vintage, with a total of 900 bottles produced.

Rabbitsfoot does not taste like traditional Sauvignon blanc at all. It is ripe, barrel-fermented and aged. An awesome, very different expression of South African Sauvignon Blanc.

The label is a combination of Linocuts, and hand-drawings showing an a-symmetrical shape that is very close to my heart. Sort of similar to the a-symmetrical wine in the bottle. It tastes the complete opposite of what one might expect.