As we have approached the end of our harvest it is now time to reflect on the past two months.

Because of the intense heat we struggled to get the sugars required in the vines. The whole ripening process comes to a standstill if it gets to warm, this results to acids burning away. It was nerve wrecking to make decisions on when to harvest...taking in account the desired alcohol of the wines and the physiological ripeness of the grapes.

I must admit... I feel much more confident about the wines this year, maybe because it is my second year of being the winemaker. All the Sauvignon Blanc tanks are almost dry and the flavours are promising, I am patiently awaiting the end result of the wine. Still much to do...keeping it on the lease for another three months, stabling the wine, bottling etc.

I have a good feeling about the red wines. The colours that we have this year are amazing. When we did our juice transfer it had a dark, purple foam on top of it and all the equipment that we used were coloured red. The reds are definitely much more intense than last year. I also did a little experiment of my own, I made one tank of Merlot without adding yeast, but letting it ferment naturally. When all of my good winemaker friends heard about this they asked me if I had nerves of steel, because there is a chance of stuck fermentation, but my approach is...”High risk, high reward“ It will be interesting to see the end result as I filled a new French oak barrel with the juice. I am going to keep it there until the wine has finished alcoholic as well as malolactic fermentation. Hopefully there is a Genl Smuts trophy waiting for me at the Young Wine Show this year.

Furthermore, it really felt good to harvest grapes that I also looked after during the course of last year and this year. It just feels more complete...managing the vineyards, harvesting the grapes and making wine from it.

Look out for Clos Malverne in 2009!