Proud to let everyone know that our 2013 Chardonnay has been selected for this years Nederburg Auction on the 16th and 17th September. There will be 5 cases of this wine for sale at a reserve price of 900.00 South African Rand per case. This is one of the worlds 5 major wine auctions and this is the first time we have submitted a wine. Rigorous selection means that only the very best wines are chosen for the auction. Nederberg Auction Catalogue
Tim and Vaughan ‘manning our table’ at Amps Fine Wines in Oundle, Northamptonshire, England
Owner of Amps Fine Wines, Philip Amps, braaing his home made Borewors.
Tim pouring our wines
Two very satisfied customers
Amps Fine Wines South African tasting August 2015
We have been very busy here at Seven Springs and it doesn’t look like the sudden winter here in the Overberg is going to slow us down. If you thought it was still Autumn, well guess again. The leaves might be golden, but the mountain tops are getting their first dusting of powdery white snow.
Benson in the Autumn Syrah vineyards
Recently we had a promotion at a local Italian restaurant, Fabio’s Ristorante, with great success. As part of celebrating the success of the promotion, but also to thank the team at Fabio’s we had a lovely tasting on the farm, even though it was windy.
Annie, Fabio, Wietske and Johan
What a great team and great support from the local community in Hermanus. They are the only authenic Italian restaurant in Hermanus and should be on your list of places to dine, have a look on http://www.fabios.co.za/. Who knows, maybe you can enjoy a glass of Seven Springs when you are there!
We have also been very busy marketing our wines in the Overberg with Swellendam the newest area you can find our wines. Schoone Oordt, a five star guesthouse serving our Chardonnay, Sauvignon blanc and Pinot noir to their patrons. With a great team of people involved in the guesthouse, Swellendam and Schoone Oordt ( http://www.schooneoordt.co.za) is a real gem and worth spending the night if you ever feel like being treated like instant family. Our wines are also for sale at De Keldermeister in town and on your way to Swellendam you can stop in Riviersonderend and buy our wines at The Wine Rack.
This week we had our annual Tradeshow with distrubutor Siris Vintners – Siris About Wine. This year the show went underground with the event taking place in the basement of the Upper East Side Hotel, creating an intimate tasting environment where it felt like you were in a barrel cave. Trade and wineries could connect and talk about all things wine. All-in-all a very enjoyable event and successful to boot. We also got to show off the fact that our 2012 Unoaked Chardonnay and 2011 Oaked Chardonnay both won a Bronze Medal at the 2014 Decanter World Wine Awards.
Harvest report to follow soon. It was a tough 2014 vintage and I think I’m still recovering like most viticulurists and winemakers in South Africa. Also be on the look out for upcoming news on the building of our own winery and tasting room on the farm. 2014 is a big year for us and it is all thanks to our local and global support, so thank you to you all.
Cheers
Winemaker Riana
Tasting Notes
Very pale in the glass, this wine is bright, light and fresh. With no exposure to oak the true characteristics of the Chardonnay grape have been retained. It is delicate and well balanced with citrus fruit and melon flavours. There are also hints of the natural South African flora, such as proteas and ericas, which grow on the mountain above the vineyard. Great to drink on its own or a great match with seafood, especially shellfish and chicken.
Decanter World Wine Awards: Bronze 2014
Technical Analysis
Alcohol: 13.59%
Residual Sugar: 1.9 g/l
Total Acidity: 6.0 g/l
pH: 3.34
Harvested by hand on 21st February 2012
Total production: 6,800 bottles (750ml)
Bottled: July 2012
Ageing potential: 4-6 years
Harvest Report
The Chardonnay vines are planted on the cooler, south facing slope, in the lowest lying area on the farm at 200 meters elevation. It experiences a mush higher water table than other parts of the vineyard and as a result there is rarely need to irrigate during the season. Seven Springs Vineyard use clone 76 for their Unoaked Chardonnay. This clone’s typical organoleptic characteristics include peach and citrus. The yield is also higher than the clones used for the oaked Chardonnay.
Harvesting at optimal ripeness for the Seven Springs Unoaked Chardonnay, meant picking the grapes at lower sugar levels than for the oaked Chardonnay. This way the fresh fruit aromas and fresh acidity on the palate was retained. Picked early in the morning, with first sorting taking place in the vineyard, the fruit was processed to a clear juice and then inoculated with commercial yeast for a clean ferment. The yeast was specifically chosen to enhance and express the natural characteristics of the Chardonnay fruit. After two weeks the alcoholic fermentation was complete and, like the Sauvignon Blanc, was left on the lees (dead yeast cells). The lees were stirred regularly to aid in the development of the mouth-feel of the wine.
Reviews
This wine vied with others in the Seven Springs portfolio as my most enjoyable. Fermented and aged in stainless steel, it is its ripeness and lees contact that gives such a lovely aroma: crushed almond melds with lemon-meringue pie, all sorts of luscious hints, but with a core of steely precision. On the palate it is full-textured and weighty, with fat lemon and lime fruit and fruit-skin tang, lots of those waxy peel notes and lovely length and concentration. Hints of spices and honeyed sweetness play against savoury and decisive, dry acidity in the finish.
Description
Produced with no exposure to oak barrels, allowing full expression of the fruit from very young vines. It has a truly tropical perfume and personifies summer in a wine glass with aromas of pineapple and passion fruit. On the palate it is rich and textured with a lingering minerality balanced with beautiful fruit flavours.
Review
This is what Tom Cannavan from the UK wrote about the wine.
“As it says on the label, a Chardonnay fermented in steel tanks with no exposure to oak, and a new product in Seven Springs’ range, showing a restless need to explore the potential of their young vines and this terroir. There’s an elegant perfume to this wine, with a little blossom or peach-skin fragrance, some dry apple fruit notes and a hint of something stony and mineral. On the palate it is juicy and led by citrus and underripe apple – a quite steely, in some ways quite austere, but there is a burgeoning sense of creaminess and those peachy tones beneath the citrus tang. A nice wine that would be joyous with some pan-fried mullet or seabass”
Unoaked Chardonnay 2011
Miguel Chan Wine Journal
Joanna Simon – Wine and Food
Colin Smith – Grapefan
Video Reviews
Description
Review
Some of our Chardonnay reviews
Glenda Van Blerk – CapeTownWineBlog
BottlePlatePillow.com – Wine Farm Search engine (Facebook)
Michael Olivier – Food & Wine Guru (Page 10)
Miguel Chan – Sommelier
Richard Saxton – The Graped Crusader
E-Vines
Simon Woods – Woods Wine
Joanna Simon
Video Review
This super video, taken in our vineyards and surrounds, has just gone live on YouTube. The video was made by the talented Charles Lourens of http://www.bottleplatepillow.com . We are really pleased as the video truly conveys what we at Seven Springs are all about. Thank you Charles, you have done us proud.
Day 2 – Thursday May 20th – The second day began with Kim and Tim meeting with Jo Wehring, UK Market Manager for Wines of South Africa (WOSA), www.wosa.co.za. Jo discussed ways that WOSA could be of a help to us in helping to eastablish our brand / wines here in the UK. WOSA were also hosting a South African Chenin Blanc tasting which highlighted the success that South Africa is having with this versatile varietal. Onwards to a tasting on the Seckfords Agencies stand, www.seckfordagencies.co.uk, for the second time with Peter Finlayson where we tasted his complete range of stunning wines. Here we were joined again by Tara O’Leary, http://winepassionista.com/, and Lynda Harvey, www.thewineplace.co.uk. Lynda has been a keen follower of Seven Springs Vineyard and is opening a wine shop in Berkshire in the near future. We then spent some time looking at different screw enclosures for future use with our wines. After a brief lunch we met with ex sommelier Richard Mitton from Worthing who hopes to set up a wine shop in Sussex later this year. Our next port of call was a tasting with Hein Koegelenberg, http://heinkoegelenberg.typepad.com/blog/, CEO of La Motte, www.la-motte.com, and owner of Leopards Leap Wines, www.leopards-leap.com. Hein gave us a fantastic tour of the La Motte winery when we were in the Cape in March and again tasting his range of wines here confirmed them as real class acts. The Pierneef range in particular standing out, if you like syrah / shiraz then get your hands on a bottle or two of these wines. Lastly, but not least, we tasted the wines from the De Wetshof Estate from Robertson, www.dewetshof.com. Brothers Peter, winemaker, and Johan de Wet, Sales and Marketing, are well known to us and their range of Chardonnays are always well received.
We left the show tired but encouraged. The band of South African wine producers are a great bunch of people and we feel proud to become one of them.
Ex Sommelier, now wine writer, blogger and wine ‘passionista’, Tara Devon, has written an article on Seven Springs Vineyard on her blog. Check out Tara’s work on the link below. Thanks for the article Tara and your passion for South African wine really shows. Once our wines are ready for tasting we will get some bottles to you for a tasting and a review.
http://winepassionista.com/2010/03/17/spotlight-on-south-africa/#more-168
John Seccombe with Vaughan and Tim
Seven Springs announced today that it will be making it’s first wines at the award winning Iona Vineyards in Elgin (http://iona.co.za). Before we build a winery we needed somewhere to make our first vintage in 2010 so had to find somewhere to make our debut wines. Iona Vineyards was our first choice and Andrew Gunn, owner of Iona, and John Seccombe, Iona’s winemaker, agreed to allow us to make our wines at this first class winery. Our winemaker, Riana, is looking forward to working with Andrew and John as their expertise will prove invaluable to enable us to produce excellent wines.