Reyneke Organic Red Wine 2017

Rudiger was always disappointed the fresh coastal breeze kicked in just as he settled down for a drink after slogging all day in the vineyards. He thought long and hard about how to beat the problem. He considered planting a bank of conifers to deflect the wind. Of relocating the vehicle shed to block it. But it all seemed a little extreme.

Stoically sipping a red one evening, he had a brainwave. Noticing the wine gave out a daytime warmth, counteracting the evening chill, he set about painting it onto the walls of his stoep. Sure enough, the concentrated, plummy red coddled the heat of the sun and reflected it through the evening. All he needed was a catchy name for the 'paint' and he was certain the technique would catch on. Of course, it's far less effort to drink it, with much the same warming effect.

The Reyneke farm was first established in 1863 under the name 'Uitsicht', meaning 'View' in Dutch. Perched so it overlooks Stellenbosch and False Bay, they have north, east and south facing slopes on which the best land is planted with vines and the remaining surrounding land provides compost and pockets of wilderness that compliment the vineyards.

Reyneke operates with the philosophy "waste not, want not" constantly in mind. For them, a sustainable balance between nature and winemaking is far more important than a balance of spreadsheets. They take a hollistic approach to all of their work, even in the office. Instead of recycling paper, they prefer to shred it to feed to the earthworm farm that then produces vermi-compost used in the vineyards. The team try to never lose sight of the synergy between the vineyards, the surrounding wild life and their people. They put their people first, name their cows instead of giving them numbers and even choose to study why weeds are growing instead of pulling them out.

Rudiger Gretschel, originally from Namibia, has been cheif winemaker at Reyneke for five years. Before joining the winery, he was winemaker at the famous Boekenhoutskloof winery based in Franschhoek. Gretschel was named South African Winemaker of the year in 2016.

Fruit for the Reyneke Organic Red Wine is sourced from Organic vineyards around the Western Cape. The grapes are sorted, destemmed and crushed before a wild, spontaneous fermentation takes place in a combination of concrete tanks and open stainless steel fermenters. During this process, the submerged cap fermentation technique is used. 40% of the wine then spends 11 months in old oak barrels before spending a further 2 months in stainless steel tanks before bottling.