Wine Composition
61% Syrah 20% Cabernet Sauvignon 5% Mourvedre 11% Petit Verdot 3% Viognier
Winemakers Comments
Elegant with ripe, juicy red and black fruit. Lovely white pepper and sweet, exotic spice on the nose. The entry is intense, with underlying cedar wood, followed by a long savoury, earthy finish with fine grained tannins.
Awards
Tim Atkin | 93 points
Technical Analysis
Alcohol Percentage
13.5%
Total Acidity
5.8g/l
Ph
3.5
Residual Sugar
1.87g/l
Vineyards/Vintage
Iona Estate in Elgin has built a formidable reputation for its cool climate white wines. But here winemaker Andrew Gunn has sprung a bit of surprise with a full-on, powerful red. The wine pours a really intense, glass-staining purple color and has a soaring nose, very expressive of kirsch and violet, with peppery and clove notes too.
Cellar Techniques
The red wine vinification is very traditional. Hand harvested, before being destemmed and sorted on a vibrating table, the grapes were destemmed and not crushed. Once wild fermentation had started the skin cap was softly punched down 2-3 times per a day to achieve desired extraction. Post fermentation the wines underwent extended maceration; the wines were tasted regularly in order to assess the extraction level and when to press-off. Once pressed off, the wines undergo spontaneous malolactic fermentation in barrel where they were aged for 12-16 months, in 500L French oak barrels, of which 25% is new oak.
Winemaker
Name - John Seccombe
Winery
The wines of Iona come from a dramatically unique site in the Cape Winelands. The vineyards are on a mountain plateau 420 meters above sea level, surrounded by the Kogelberg Nature Reserve, and overlooking the Atlantic Ocean. In a country where cool sites are precious, these vineyards are like gold – the grapes ripening up to two months later than other Cape vineyards and in perfect balance. Iona is South Africa's coolest vineyard site.
Andrew Gunn and family acquired this beautiful, but run-down apple farm in 1997. It was renamed "IONA" after the remote, spiritual island off the west coast of Scotland.
The first vineyards were planted in 1998 and the initial research confirms that Iona is South Africa’s coolest vineyard with harvesting times up to 8 weeks later than other wine producing areas.
The cool climate ensures long, slow physiological ripening of the grapes under ideal growing conditions, with the sugar, ph, acid and flavor compounds being in balance to produce elegant wines of distinction.
Iona’s Sauvignon blancs are making a name for themselves as one of the finest examples of this grape variety in the world.
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