This weekend I had the most wonderful experience! Having recently tasted a delicious chardonnay from Dombeya, a range of wines made at Haskell Vineyards in the Helderberg area about 10 minutes from Blaauwklippen, I was eager to taste more, and since their tastings are by appointment I emailed winemaker Rianie Strydom to set a time. She responded that she would be in the cellar on Saturday at 10 am for pumpovers, so I could come then. I finagled I ride from Albert and showed up shortly before 10 at Haskell’s gorgeous mountainside wine centre.
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In my ongoing attempt to drink my way through Stellenbosch, I’m visiting wine farms every chance I get, and a few of my recent tasting experiences have been bizarre enough to be post-worthy. From a springbok carpaccio lunch on top of a mountain to a garden that belongs on a Beatles album cover, it seems there’s no shortage of creativity––and weirdness––in the tasting rooms of Stellenbosch.
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I’ve woken up in the wee hours of the morning not once, but twice now, horrified that I’d forgotten to check the sugar level on the zinfandel. I have a possibly permanent tan on my feet in the shape of the Keens I wear every day. My back, feet, and shoulders are in constant pain, there’s never enough beer in the fridge, and I actually went to bed at 9:30 the other night for the first time since I was maybe eight years old.
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The first grapes came in at 9 a.m., huge purple clusters that were both juicy-sweet and a bit tangy to the taste. Instead of half-ton bins these arrived in small crates which we tossed one by one straight into the press; these grapes were VIPs, receiving a gentle whole-cluster press rather than the usual crushing. As we lugged crate after crate up a makeshift staircase and dumped it into the press under the blistering sun, knowing we had a 14-hour day ahead of us, Rolf shouted, “smile, guys! This is one of our most important wines!”
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Juicy, complex, full of flavor, and in balance at 24 Balling/Brix and 3.4 pH, our 2010 merlot from the mountainside Tortoiseback Vineyard is so delicious, we couldn’t stop shoving whole clusters of grapes in our mouths while crushing it.
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