Some might think that blended wines are simply wines made up of different leftovers in the cellar. This is not the case at all. Blending wine is an art (with a healthy dose of science included in the mix). Johann Fourie, KWV senior winemaker explains:
Interviewer: What is meant by the art of blending wines?
Johann: A blend is made by combining the qualities of different wines. It’s a complicated process as it requires a lot of skill, patience and creativity (as well as the knowledge of the qualities of different cultivars and how they mix). As a winemaker you go on a journey and you can push yourself to your sensory limit. Blending wines is also a lengthy procedure as you play around until you find the perfect balance.
You have to apply creativity, be open-minded and think outside the box. We explore and experiment with the different flavours of the wine, so we can be called liquid chefs!
Interviewer: What makes blended wines so special?
Johann: With blended wines there are no rules – anything goes. Blended wines are more interesting with added layers and dimensions as they are made up of different varietals. It is about finding the best characteristic of each component and combining it to create a masterpiece.
Interviewer: Are blended wines popular?
Johann: Yes, more consumers are starting to enjoy blended wines. These wines offer something new and exciting.
Interviewer: What are the main blended wine styles?
Johann: You have your Bordeaux blends, which are known worldwide. These wines are complex, high in tannin structure, age well and are perfect to enjoy with heavy food dishes such as meat (steaks) or lamb.
Rhone style blends are softer and spicier with juicy fruit flavours. These wines can be paired with lighter meals such as veal or chicken.
‘Truly South African’ is the Cape blends. These wines are very aromatic and fruit forward and partner perfectly with spicy foods such as curries and bobotie.
Winter is time for pruning in the Cape. Care is taken to get the right amount of bud load (number of buds) per vine. This is the starting point for managing the quality and quantity of fruit that will be harvested for KWV in vintage 2011.
From July onwards, producers will plant new vineyards that will supply future resources. All new plantings are done in collaboration with KWV with a clear end-goal of the desired cultivar, quality and style.
Planning for the next vintage and evaluating the current wines are some of the wine team’s main responsibilities during the post-harvest period.
Through classification tasting sessions they evaluate all wines to establish whether specific vineyards produced the expected results. Through this they gain a better understanding of the potential of the various vineyards. This also serves to identify opportunities for improvement and helps producers achieve new goals.
During the winter season we all like to hibernate and keep warm in the cold weather (and maybe watch a football match or two). We all need rest and recuperation and the same applies to the vineyards. Cobus van Graan, KWV chief viticulturist told me what they’re up to during the chills and downpours of the Cape winter.
In winter the vineyard teams start preparing for the upcoming season and do maintenance work, such as fixing trellis and irrigation systems as well as servicing spray pumps and vineyard equipment. This is all in preparation for the budding of the vineyards which will coincide with the arrival of spring.
During every autumn they sow cover crops (oats, rye, etc) in the vine rows. These cover crops improve the soil structure, increase the soil’s organic content, naturally suppress unwanted weeds and also serve as a water-saving mulch during the warmer summer months. Judging from the growth rate to date, 2010 seems to be a great season for cover crops.
The weather thus far has been close to ideal for the dormant vines. Ample cold weather has met the chill requirements of the vines. Abundant rain during May and June has saturated soils and filled dams and rivers, ensuring that soil temperatures stay low. This sets the scene for an ideal start to the season.
We caught up with Thys Loubser, head red winemaker and Johann Fourie, senior winemaker at KWV to chat about what happens in the cellar during the winter months.
“During this time of the year, the main activities in the cellar include filtration of the wines and preparation for bottling,” tells Loubser. Filtration is the cleaning of the wines, a finishing process performed before bottling to remove solid impurities, such as dead yeast cells.
They also perform a lot of tastings at this stage to check the tannins and acid levels in the wine. As for red wines, they are currently busy with the malolactic fermentation of this year’s vintage (2010). This process refers to a natural, second fermentation, which softens the acidity in the wine.
These wines will then be tasted, divided into different batches and placed in barrels to start their maturation process or ‘winter sleep’.
The 2009 red wines are now coming out of the barrels and being prepared for bottling. The 2009 KWV Lifestyle wines such as Merlot, Pinotage and Cabernet Sauvignon are all being prepared for bottling in the next few weeks.
At this stage they also think about the components of the wines and what would be suitable for blending. They are also looking at the make-up of the current 2010 white wines.
“We have to evaluate the wines of the different vineyards now as we need to give the various growers feedback in terms of the performance of their vineyards,” said Fourie. This is important as pruning will start soon and growers need to know how they must manage their vineyards accordingly to achieve a specific wine style.
Our team has done us proud once again, this time at the recent 2010 London International Wine Fair where we had outstanding results in both the Decanter World Wine Awards as well as the International Wine Challenge. Bringing home the gold, was the KWV The Mentors Shiraz 2008 (Decanter) followed by a sequence of excellent Silver & Bronze achievements.
These awards are announced hot on the heels of recent achievements at the annual Concours Mondial de Bruxelles and the local Old Mutual Trophy Wine Show. Our chief wine maker Richard Rowe said, “The team is delighted with these results, which strongly support the company’s transformation programme. Over the past 12 months we have been focusing our winemaking efforts on producing wine styles which are more international in style, with greater emphasis on elegance, freshness and finesse. We welcome this endorsement of our future direction. The best, however, is yet to come!”
We’ve returned from KWV with loads of pictures. We also had a quick catch up with the winemaker’s assistants, lovely ladies with bucket loads of useful information.
So the morning started pretty early to try and get to KWV Wines in time for the “tipping of the grapes.” This is when the trucks arrive from all over the Western Cape with a container load of grapes and literally tip the grapes in through a shoot into the de-stemmer.
We also managed to enjoy the sweetness that the Chardonnay grapes had to offer…
Enzymes are then added to aid the fermentation process and we met with Jenash Topher who is the official enzyme mixer, he also assists with the grapes as they enter the cellar.
After the grapes are destemmed, they travel though a cooling pipe into enormous vats which hold between 20 000 – 60 000L of wine.
I took a quick snap of the view from the KWV Wines’ cellar of Paarl rock while I was feeling creatively inspired, if I were I winemaker this would be the kind of view I would insist upon!
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After rushing through the cellar, following the journey of the grapes and meeting new people, we had a chance to catch up with the winemakers’ assistants about the harvest, in a nutshell this is what they had to say:
KWV Wines has completed harvesting the Pinotage and Chenin grapes. Both winemakers feel that despite the erratic weather conditions Cape Town and Paarl has been experiencing, 2010 looks like a promising year, especially for Sauvignon Blanc and Pinotage. The KWV Wines harvest is estimated to end during the first week of April.
More on this soon though, we’ll be uploading our video footage within the next few days so watch this space!
In the meantime take a look through our Facebook gallery at more photos of the harvest here.
Cobus, grew up in Elgin and began is career with a B.Sc.Agric. Oenology and Viticulture, after which he worked in California for three months. On his return he joined Vinpro Consultation services as Senior Viticulturist for the Paarl area.
Currently Cobus is Senior Viticulturist at KWV. He is responsible for grape procurement, producer liaison and new area developments – all in all, ensuring the excellence that epitomises the KWV Wines.
We had a word with our viticulturists, Cobus and Unathi as well as Chief Winemaker, Richard Rowe about climate change and its effect on South African wines. This is what they had to say:
We’d like to introduce you to Unathi Montshongo, one of the KWV Viticulturists. Unathi is originally from Umtata, in the Eastern Cape, South Africa – but it was a few years later that her love affair with winemaking began at Stellenbosch University where she completed her B.Sc.Agric. with Oenology and Viticulture. She later furthered her education with an Honours in Viticulture and a Certificate in Business Communication.
“During this time of the year, the main activities in the cellar include filtration of the wines and preparation for bottling,” tells Loubser. Filtration is the cleaning of the wines, a finishing process performed before bottling to remove solid impurities, such as dead yeast cells.
