Pinotage 2021

Founded in 1996 by Anthony Hamilton Russell, Ashbourne Estate is located in the Hemel-en-Aarde Valley on the eastern border of Hamilton Russell Vineyards. The property is named after Anthony’s great-great-grandfather, Lord Ashbourne, who was Lord Chancellor of Ireland in the late 1800s.

Since its first release in 2001, this benchmark wine has redefined the South African red grape variety, Pinotage , with its classic, refined style and uniquely complex character. This wine comes from a very low-yielding vineyard planted on stony, clay-rich soils. After the manual harvest, the grapes are transported as quickly as possible to the press. There, they are selected, destemmed and gently crushed. Fermentation then takes place in stainless steel vats and the wine will age for 10 months in old 400-litre French oak barrels and 6 months in 2000-litre tuns. This wine reveals notes of blueberries , blackberries , blackcurrants , raspberries , dried roses , peonies , undergrowth , Mediterranean herbs , white pepper , cocoa and smoky notes . This is a wine like no other, intense, rich and tasty with a beautiful underlying minerality. The palate is elegant and refined which tends towards an extremely long and complex finish.

The first vines were planted in South Africa by Dutch settlers in the 1650s, although wine production did not really begin to take off until the arrival of French Protestants, in the 1680s, with their skills and their knowledge of viticulture. Stellenbosch is also a historic wine region, with the first vineyards being planted there in the 1690s. Today South Africa is one of the most important wine producing countries in the southern hemisphere. With over 300 years of winemaking history, it is often described as a bridge between the Old and New Worlds. The majority of wines are produced using New World winemaking techniques, but they often have more in common stylistically with their Old World counterparts. Since the end of apartheid, South African wine has received international attention and acclaim for its wide variety of styles. South Africa's wine industry is spread across the lush and rugged landscape of the Western Cape. Here, the abundance of mountains, valleys and plateaus allows winemakers to produce a wide variety of styles. Vineyards can also be found in the Orange River region of the Northern Cape, where the flat, arid landscape is dominated by the Kalahari Desert. Most of South Africa's wine regions have a Mediterranean climate, strongly influenced by the meeting of the Atlantic and Indian Oceans. The country's signature grape variety is Pinotage, an indigenous cross of Pinot Noir and Cinsaut that is rarely found in quantity in other wine-producing countries. Shiraz (Syrah) is also widely planted, as are Cabernet Sauvignon and Merlot (often combined in a Bordeaux blend). South African Chardonnay, Chenin and Sauvignon Blanc have become popular internationally in recent years.