Wine Composition
100% Chenin Blanc
Winemakers Comments
This wine has a taste of green apple, apricot, peach, hints of honey and floral aromas characterize a fresh and upfront nose. The palate is rich and well integrated with a lingering aftertaste.
Awards
Tim Atkins | 94 points
Wine Enthusiast | 92 points
Technical Analysis
Alcohol Percentage
14.0%
TA
5.78 g/l
pH
3.43
RS
1.3 g/l
Cellar Techniques
Pre-cooled fruit is lightly destemmed and crushed, followed by short skin contact. Free run and medium press components are combined with hard press fractions kept separate. Fermentation occurs naturally with wild yeasts in a combination of the stainless steel tank and old French oak barrels. The final blend is made up after 4-6 months of ageing on the lees then lightly filtered and stabilized for bottling.
2018 was dry vintage in the Cape. Thunder storms in early spring added a lot of Nitrogen to the soils resulting in very healthy canopies entering the growing season. The daytime temperature during the ripening period was cooler than what was experienced in the very hot 2016 and 2017 vintages, with relatively cool evenings. Conditions were very dry though, with vine stress management being key to success. Fruit harvesting tended to be very early in 2018, with a focus on bringing fruit into the winery with lower sugar levels and lower pH levels.
Winemaker
Name - Carl van der Merwe
Winery
DeMorgenzon, ‘the morning sun,’ was so named as it is the first part of the Stellenboschkloof valley to see the sun because of its high altitude and aspects. We cover the top southern and eastern slopes of Ribbokkop, overlooking the pinnacle of Kanonkop from where a cannon was fired to alert the farms in the region that a ship had put into Table Bay. The first road from Cape Town to Stellenbosch ran through the Stellenbosch Kloof.
In 2003 Wendy and Hylton Appelbaum bought DeMorgenzon and have since transformed DeMorgenzon into a 224-acre garden vineyard, where abundant wildflowers grow between the vines.
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