Wine Composition

100% Chardonnay

Winemakers Comments

This wine oozes undeniable elegance. Laser-like lemon-and-lime acidity cuts through the core of more rounded peach fruit and baked apples, finished off with roasted almond and vanilla pod. The wine is blended from three parcels of fruit (two of which are high in the Helderberg), all harvested at different ripeness. This enables winemaker JD Pretorius to build up enormously complex fruit elements, without relying too much on oak or batonage.  

Awards

Tim Atkin | 94 points (2019)

Technical Analysis

Alcohol Percentage 

13.5%

Total Acidity 

5.91 g/l 

pH 

3.45

Residual Sugar 

3.06 g/l

Vinification

Specifically, selected Stellenbosch sites, two on the Helderberg, that add more freshness and acidity and one from Warwick on a warmer wet facing slope of the Simonsberg, adding textural and structural elements to the wine. All three vineyards are picked separately at different ripeness levels to add complexity. Whole bunch pressed and juice allowed to clear naturally before transferred to 228L BurgundianFrench oak barrels, for fermentation. 23% new oak, 29% second fill, 25% third fill, 13% fourth fill and the balance in neutral oak. Barrels are rolled once a month for nine months before a tight selection process and blending early in 2021. Light filtration before bottling in February 2021.  

Winemaker

Name - JD Pretorius

Winery

Warwick Estate is a family-owned and runs winery. From 1771 til 1902, Warwick Wine Farm was known as the farm ‘De Goede Sukses’. After the Anglo Boer war in 1902, Colonel William Alexander Gordon, Commanding Officer of the Warwickshire regiment decided against returning to England and bought the farm. He renamed it ‘Warwick’ as a tribute to his regiment and the rest, as they say, is history. Warwick was purchased on April 1st, 1964 by Stan Ratcliffe after an extensive search for the best ‘terroir’ in the Cape. It was in 1986 that the first Warwick Trilogy was released - a Bordeaux style blend which has since become one of the flagships of the South African Wine Industry. Warwick has won many accolades over the years and was featured for the second time in Wine spectators’ wines of the year.