The 2016 vintage was a challenging one for the vineyard team. It started with moderate Winter temperatures and below average rainfall. Spring came early and was also relatively warm and dry and we started to irrigate earlier than usual. The weather continued to warm up towards Christmas and we experienced average maximum temperatures of 30°C and 35°C for December and January respectively! Fortunately, we had some rain during December which pepped the vines up leading into the critical ‘veraison’ period. This is when the berries change colour and begin to ripen and enter a high water-demand period. With all of the hot, dry weather the grapes ripened quickly and we started picking earlier than ever before (19 January). We had a crazy month of harvesting where we processed 78 tons of grapes from the farm including 11 different varieties. Fortunately, we stayed on top of the picking and were able to get all of the grapes in with good analysis. Harvest ended as quickly as it had begun and by 19 February we had picked all of the grapes for Keermont wines.

All grapes used in producing our wines are grown on Keermont Vineyards. Small parcels of grapes are specifically selected according to ripeness, harvested by hand and vinified separately. This process is carried out gently and naturally in open top fermenters using traditional methods only. This wine spent 20 months maturing in seasoned 500 and 225 litre French oak barrels before being bottled by hand without filtration on 9 November 2017. We produced 12 605 bottles and 158 magnums.

Serve with a lamb burger and sweet potato fries, hard cheeses or lamb cuts