NGERINGA ROSÉ 2015

The NGERINGA Rosé is made with Syrah from our three vineyards: Summit, Rufus and Illuma.  The Summit vineyard is planted on an easterly facing slope at 380m above sea level on a soil of sandy loam over clay and with Lake Alexandrina as its backdrop. The Rufus vineyard, by contrast, is westerly facing on the opposing side of the hill with a rocky, red ironstone soil over clay.  The Iluma vineyard, also on a westerly facing slope, is of a sparkling micaceous schist over clay.  All our Syrah vineyards are planted at a density of 6700 vines/ha.

VINTAGE NOTES

The 2015 growing season was drier and somewhat warmer than 2014 and concluded with an uncommonly early start to the harvest, with grapes for our sparkling base being picked in the first week of February. Ripening across our low-to-moderate yields, however, was spread out enough to allow us to do all of our own handpicking with our French-dominated, in-house crew without recourse to extra hired hands. Wines from this vintage have a quality and character very similar to our stellar 2013 vintage with excellent concentration of flavours.

TASTING NOTES

Cheerful and lifted, this vintage’s Rosé has the bouquet of light, blushed cherries and aromatic mandarin blossoms. Crisp and linear to taste, reminiscent of the structure of freshly sliced grapefruit. But it’s neither a simple nor one-dimensional wine with a fine reductive quality and the complexing flavours of flint and graphite. Goes well beyond mere quaffing.

WINEMAKING NOTES

100% Syrah from our best Iluma Vineyard fruit. 80% whole-bunch pressed, 20% saignée. Fermented in 100% seven-year-old French barrels. Aged for one year in barrel on full lees.

Wild fermentation, no enzymes, oxidative handling pre-fermentation, spontaneous malolactic fermentation, gentle extraction, warmer fermentation, minimal temperature control. No fining. Estate bottled. Small amounts of sulphites added before bottling.