Wine Composition
100% Pinot Noir
Winemakers Comments
Poise and elegance with spicy notes – characteristic of the cool slope’s low-vigour, stony, clay-rich shale soil. The wine shows a marked elegance and is slightly more opulent and perfumy than the previous vintage.
Awards
Tim Atkin | 95 points
Technical Analysis
Alcohol Percentage
13.64% vol
TA
5.8 g/l
pH
3.59
RS
2.8 g/l
Vinification/Vintage
Ridge Pinot Noir hails from a cool, eastern slope in the Hemel-en-Aarde Ridge with low-vigour, stony, clay-rich Bokkeveld shale soil.
This basket-pressed, native yeast-fermented wine shows great balance and length. Dense and perfumed showing floral scents, spice, red cherry and raspberry fruit, savory tannins and focused acidity.
Harvest was slightly earlier than usual, beginning in the second week of February. Overall the 2019 calendar year was wetter than the previous dry years and cooler than that of the celebrated 2019 vintage. A standout feature of the vintage was phenolic ripeness at lower sugar levels which resulted in lower alcohol concentrations. Conditions during the growing season resulted in low yields - small berries and light bunches.
Winemaker
Name - Hannes Storm
Winery
After 12 vintages in the Hemel-en-Aarde Valley – ‘Heaven-and-Earth’ in Afrikaans – working intimately with Pinot Noir and Chardonnay, Hannes Storm discovered two tiny parcels of land with particularly exceptional terroirs. The two vineyards, one in the Hemel-en-Aarde Valley and the other in the Upper Hemel-en-Aarde Valley, were planted in 2008 to Pinot Noir. Storm’s maiden vintage saw the light in 2012 and, after spending 18 months in bottle, the wines were released in August 2014.
Storm handcrafts his Vrede Pinot Noir and Vrede Chardonnay from low-vigour, stony, clay-rich Bokkeveld (‘Buck Veld’) shale soil in the Hemel-en-Aarde Valley, his Ignis Pinot Noir from decomposed granite soil in the Upper Hemel-en-Aarde Valley and his Ridge Pinot Noir, also from low-vigour, stony, clay-rich Bokkeveld shale soil in the Hemel-en-Aarde Ridge. Storm Wines is the only producer with Pinot Noirs from each of the three appellations in the Hemel-en-Aarde.
Storm Wines strives to steer the purest characteristics of each vineyard site towards bottle and cork. Small production, careful viticulture, minimal intervention in the cellar and a constant nod to the Old World present the wines with distinctive personality and character
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