Spier 21 Gables Chenin Blanc 2020

Pale lemon gold at a glance, this is a gloriously fresh and pure style of Chenin Blanc. Upfront ripe, juicy peach and pear fruit aromas are balanced with notes of dried apricot and a lick of oak spice. The palate is youthful but wonderfully luscious, refreshed by mouth-watering acidity and a lingering fruit core finish that provides complexity and texture.

The fruit for this wine is hand-picked from a vineyard planted in 1983 on the hills of Tygerberg near Cape Town. Our philosophy is to guide the wine to reflect the terroir, and this terroir is an old soul. As a result, we toil the land gently. The climate is Mediterranean with the majority of the rainfall from May to September. The vineyard is farmed under dryland conditions and the soils are deep and well drained with a high clay percentage to retain water for the duration of the growing season. Average rainfall is 450 mm per year. The cool ocean breezes helps to temper the heat so the berries can enjoy a longer hang time.

The vineyard is planted on the hills of Tygerberg. The landscape is characterized by very old geological formations and the soils are mainly decomposed Malmesbury shale. The proximity to the cold Atlantic Ocean is roughly 15 km.

Grape sampling are done twice weekly to follow sugar accumulation and ripeness, satellite imaging are used to determine different areas of vigour and different ripening stages. Harvesting is done over 2 weeks and 6 different parcels are harvested and vinified separately.

At harvest, the grapes were picked in 4 parcels in late February at a yield of approximately 8 tonnes per hectare. This partial picking was done to select the grapes at different ripeness levels, encouraging complexity. The grapes were hand-harvested in 8kg lug boxes and pre-cooled before hand-sorting, destemming and crushing.

Skin contact was limited to 6 hours, and the free-run juice drained off to settle overnight before inoculation. Fermentation took place in a combination of 300L, 400L, 500L and 2500L tight-grain French-oak barrels. We use different oak barrel sizes to add varying levels of oak influence that can then be skilfully blended for the final wine. I think of this wine as a single varietal made like a blend. The Chenin Blanc then matured for 14 months in barrels - 60% new oak, with the balance being second fill.