Grangehurst 2009

In the cellar

The grapes were harvested by hand into lug baskets (± 18 kg per basket); sorting of grapes prior to destemming and hand sorting again between the destemmer and crusher; then crushed (± 50% whole berries) and pumped to open fermenters; manual punchdowns (pigeage) 4 to 6 times per day for the duration of fermentation; between 7 and 16 days on skins, then drawn off and pressed using wooden basket presses; free-run and press wines blended and racked to 225 litre barrels; malolactic fermentation in barrels; barrel to barrel and barrel to tank rackings to clarify the wine – no filtration prior to racking to the bottling tanks. This wine was clarified according to the natural settling and racking method, which does not involve the use of any fining agents, centrifuges or filters – a natural, unhurried method of clarifying wine. Matured in French oak barrels for 35 months. The 14 barrels that were selected for this reserve wine were racked and blended into a stainless steel tank. After a period of settling, the wine was racked again into the stainless steel bottling tanks from where it flowed by gravity via a cartridge filter into the filler – 3,576 x 750ml bottles and 363 x 1.5 L magnums.