Winter at the KWV cellars
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.