HARVEST REVIEW

GENERAL
The outstanding quality of the 2010 harvest will ensure that it goes down in history as one of South Africa’s best.
Lower yields and intensely concentrated flavours from extremely healthy grapes mean that producers throughout the winelands are delighted with the results.
Wine lovers can look forward to superlative Sauvignon blanc wines. Other top performing cultivars are Chardonnay and Sémillon, thanks to unseasonably cool weather in late December and early January. Among the reds, Cabernet Sauvignon, Shiraz, Pinotage and Merlot are exceptional.

THE HARVEST
The cooler ripening season caused the harvest to start two weeks later than usual. Late February and early March temperature spikes had cellars going into overdrive with tremendous pressure on resources and logistics, since the later cultivars ripened at the usual time and not two weeks later.
The picking season was more than a month shorter than usual.

THE WINES
Smaller berry size gave excellent fruit to skin ratio, thus enhancing colour intensity in the reds. The white wine boast luscious, full bodied characters, with remarkably low pHs levels and delightful acidity.

Production of Sauvignon blanc was down by more than 30% in some instances. A long, wet winter was followed by an extremely dry summer. Excellent grape analyses across all cultivars, some say the best in over a decade. High acids and low pHs levels are a general trend and the colour in red cultivars was very intense.