Rainbow’s End Cabernet Franc 2019

Grapes are handpicked in crates early in the morning so that the grapes arrive cool at our cellar. It is destemmed with no crushing into a vibrating sorting table where hand sorted. ( taking out any green stems and leaves.). Grapes then pumped into open fermenters. A enzyme and dry ice is added for colour extraction. Around 8% juice is drained off and the juice is cooled down to around 12 degrees Celsius for a cold soak of 3-5 days. After that tank is inoculated with a yeast culture. Wine starts fermenting at around 16 degrees and fermentation is done at around 25 degrees Celsius. Manuel hand punch downs is done every 3 hours for first third of fermentation. Thereafter pump overs done two times a day. Wine is kept on skins for another two weeks after fermentation. ( post macerated ). After that free run wine was taken to 225 liter French Oak barrels. Skins was pressed with a handbasketpress and added to the free run in barrel. Wine then matured for 12 months in 100% French Oak. Wine was racked once in and out of barrel through 12 months maturation. After 12 months wine was then taken out of barrel and bottled without filtration.

The grapes for this wine comes out of two Cabernet Franc vineyard blocks. Blocks are next to each other very high up on the farm, ( 500m above sealevel ), Row direction is East West and the one block is the French Loire Valley Clone 214 and the other block is the South African Clone 1. Rootstock is Richer 110 and blocks was planted in 2001. After the first year after the drought years of 2016/17/18 the vineyard had little stress and quite a light crop.( 6t/ha ). It was a relatively cool ripening period and grapes was picked at a relatively lower sugar level than usual. The clone 214 block was picked on 10 March and the Clone 1 block was picked on 18 March. The wine shows more red fruit than usual but also nice mineralic ness with some rype herb/vegetative characters like tomotoleaf, cinnamon, thyme. With aeration in the glass or decanter or decanter nice graphite character as well in the wine with earthy wet soil character. The wine has very good concentration but also show elegance and freshness making it a more classical vintage.

This wine can be aged for 5-10 years from date of vintage, if stored in the correct conditions.

This wine pairs well with Goats Cheese, Venison, Root Vegetables.

“Rainbow’s End” is the name of the Malan family’s wine estate near Stellenbosch. It is a name that conjures up associations, and among these are the divine promise of sunshine after rain, of commitment to the earth, of a destination and a pot of gold. Their winemaker, Anton Malan, treasures Rainbow’s End’s unique terroir. He has no desire to place their wines into a specific category of conventional wine style (such as Old World or New World styles). They treat each vintage year separately and make what the season and the specific terroir of a specific vineyard block offers. Every year they adapt their winemaking techniques slightly in order to ensure the best possible result irrespective of a particular style. They create a unique product and wine style annually – the best that the season can offer.