Warwick Professor Black Sauvignon Blanc 2024

Each component was picked early in the morning and crushed to stainless steel for skin contact ranging from 8-14 hours before a gentle pressing. Cold fermentation in stainless steel with aromatic yeasts and aged on the lees before blending and stabilisation. Bottled June 2023.

This wonderful Sauvignon Blanc comprises two blocks situated high on the Simonsberg in Stellenbosch, one planed in 2003 and the other in 1985. Multiple pickings resulting in six different components ultimately making up the final blend, all to add extra complexity, different aromatics, and texture.

The wine is ready to enjoy now, but it will gain in weight and complexity over the next two to three years.

Sauvignon Blanc

Grilled salmon with Thai noodle salad.

When people talk about the ‘history’ of a place, they think of the people who lived there, and the personalities who built it. For Warwick Estate, ‘history’ began when the first title deed was issued for the land in 1771. For almost two hundred years, it was a hugely productive fruit farm that served the Cape’s growing pioneer population. It was only in 1964 that the Ratcliffe Family arrived on the scene, and it took winemaker Norma Ratcliffe, alongside her husband Stan, twenty years before they released their first wine. Warwick’s La Femme Bleu Cabernet Sauvignon was released in 1984, after which the estate went on to bottle the first ever ‘Cape Blend’ in the world, won multiple international wine awards, appeared on some of the planet’s most prestigious wine lists, and even became a wine of choice for James Bond in one of his many adventures. In many senses, the Warwick Estate brand that you know today was developed the same way one might nurture a grape vine; through decade upon decade of careful planning, pruning, and persistence.