Riebeek Chenin Blanc 2018

Thorn Clarke Milton Park Shiraz is aged for 12 months in American oak barrels.
Deep red color. The wine is deep and rich smelling with dark fruits, plums and spice with some good oak. There is very rich fruit on the palate with plums, blackberry and sweet spice from the oak. The palate is vibrant and young with a flavorsome viscous mouthfeel which will develop complexity with time. There are some slightly chewy tannins which will soften with time and there is great length of fruit flavor.

Rubus Proprietary Red is made from 90% Garnacha and 10% Syrah

Tasting Notes: This blend of red varietals combine to produce a flavorsome wine rich in blackberry and plum fruits. Aromas of subtle spices, berry and fruitcake.

The Grenaches represent 90% of the final blend. From all the Grenaches, more than 70% is represented by Garnacha Tinta, from 35 year old vines planted on very small plots using the goblet (bush vine) pruning technique, where you can see the typicities of it, the survival spirit of the vine and everything is very artisanal. The remaining Grenache is a blend of Garnacha Peluda (Lledoner Pelut), Garnacha Tintorera and some loose Garnacha Blanca vines.
The Syrah, representing 10% of the final blend, is mostly planted in trellis with irrigation, all mechanized, but where its quality is not diminished since this foreign variety requires another form of viticulture, it needs more water and other cultivation techniques, producing aromatic wines with a lot of color, contributing what the Grenache may lack.

Located in a mountainous area called SistemaI Ibérico, in an area with great geographical interest, undulating soils, and with a maximum altitude close to 1000 masl, characterized on stony, loose and nutrient-poor soils. Being heterogeneous soils in their entirety, but intended for this assembly, 80% of vineyards located at an altitude higher than 800 meters above sea level, planted in goblet (bush vine) with 60% of vines over 50 years old.

We can find these types of soils:
- Gravel, composed of pebbles and boulders, coming from alluvium, with good drainage giving intense, structured and fleshy wines.
- Red Slates, with low fertility and where they hardly retain rainwater, giving subtle, fine and elegant wines.
- Slates gray, darker in color, retain the heat of the day and expel it at night, resulting in high-grade grapes and low yields, with structured wines and mineral notes.
- Marl or marlstone, Composed of limestones and clays, deep soils, giving wines with body, warm, powerful and aromatic.
- In addition to areas with clay, sandy and limestone soils.

Vinification is carried out separately, using different strains of Saccharomyces yeasts, but also non-Saccharomyces strains for sugar consumption and that do not produce ethanol. We look for strains of yeast that provide primary aromas in the less old grenache, in the old we look for strains that provide polysaccharides from their cell walls and that produce glycerol. For the Syrah, vinifications are made at a lower temperature to favor primary and secondary aromas, but with successive delestages (racking) to obtain color; and once the alcoholic fermentation is finished, we make a first blending based on the correction of the acidity, so that later the malolactic fermentation takes place and once finished we decide on a final blend before the brief ageing in French oak of part of the blend, the part that we want to round by the contribution of tannin from the oak that will polymerize with the tannin of the grape.

Pairs with grilled meats, lamb, duck or barbecue pork

Thorn Clarke Milton Park Chardonnay grapes were crushed, destemmed and then pressed using a membrane press. Pressings were not used. Fermented using French Yeast at 12-15 degrees Celcius. The ferment was kept slow and cool to retain all the natural flavors of the grape. The wine was then racked and filtered. Bottling took place soon afterwards so the wine was a true expression of the grape and the terroir from which it was made.

The color is a rich vibrant green. The nose shows lifted clean, sweet fruit of apricot and peach. The palate is medium to full bodied and exhibits predominantly peach and nectarine flavors, with cloves and cardamom evident from the use of a small amount of French oak. The wine finishes full and long with a nice balance of sweet fruit and creaminess.