Mantlepiece
The thing about owning a mountain is the fact that it's a piece of the earth's mantle. Wildeberg is Boutinot South Africa's home, our hearth, our fire place… and we are quite clearly stuck on the side of the earth's crust here on this magnificent mountain in Franschhoek. Wildeberg is belittlingly dramatic in scale and it is this scale that we try to apply to this small, pretty wine. The label pays homage to the unique, ever-shifting soils and slopes of South Africa's Cape mountains, formed over aeons of geological time. It illustrates the dry-grown, bush-vines of the Cinsault cultivar farmed here, where their roots dig deep into the Earth's layers foraging for sustenance in these harsh conditions.
Coastal Region
South Africa
Food Match
Anything driven by hoisin and plum sauce flavors, duck, goose and other dark meats.
Tasting Notes
This is a deep yet pretty Cinsault being generous of fruit yet full of life. The nose is alluringly aromatic with heady aromas of fresh damsons, plum sauce, hoisin and star anise. The palate reflects these with it's bright, fresh and gently textural notes that marry together with delicate finesse. From 35-40 year old, unirrigated vines in Paarl, this old dame is remarkably light on her feet and says so much about why Boutinot have championed Cinsault from South Africa for over 10 years. This is just plain posh!
Production
Cinsault has bewilderingly been overlooked in the Cape for too long but is a grape variety Boutinot have proudly been championing for years – so it's great that this voice of the Cape's cool Atlantic vineyards is finally finding favor with wine drinkers. The 35-40 year old, dry-grown, Cinsault bush-vines are grown on Paarl's deep sandy loams where only the fittest of the fit survive these harsh, dry growing conditions. Due to the age of the vines, yields are naturally restricted and very little crop control is required in these unirrigated vineyards. The climate is perfect for viticulture with the low rainfall in summer months, tempered by cool Atlantic afternoon breezes, and the cold winters allowing the vines to rest and build up reserves. All grapes are picked by hand at optimal phenolic ripeness (polyphenols are the source of wine's color, flavor and mouthfeel), followed by a fermentation using delestage, a process whereby the juice is racked off and pumped back over the cap, facilitating the extraction of color and flavor. This process along with being stored in older 500 liter French oak barrels to gently shape the wine further, oxygenates the wine which reduces tannin concentration and boosts esters, key compounds that allow the fruit characters to be expressed. Along with the Cinsault, we've added around 5% Franschhoek Cabernet Franc which releases a subtle fragrant herbal notes, minerality and freshness, along with a tiny blob of Swartland Malbec for it's smooth lushness. The result is a wine full of lovely juiciness in which ripe red fruit dominates.