PAULUS WINE CO. Bosberaad Chenin Blanc 2022

Paulus Wine Co. is a collaboration between Paul Jordaan, a South African, and Pauline Roux, a Frenchwoman. After years of travel and winemaking experience, Paul Jordaan had been working alongside Eben Sadie for 10 years. Pauline Roux was due to return to Tuscany but decided to do one last harvest in South Africa, and chose to stay. She has worked with Adi Badenhorst and Andrea Mullineux.

Bosberaad is in fact a place where all the elements and parameters needed to create a wine can come together: the vine, the terroir, people and energies. The vineyard where the Chenin for the Bosberaad cuvée is planted lies in the Paardeberg, in the Siebritskloof valley. The bush vines are farmed organically. They were planted in 1980 on decomposed granite, which brings a certain minerality and saline notes to the wine. The grapes are hand-harvested and whole-bunch pressed. Fermentation takes place in old oak barrels. The wine is aged on the lees for around 10 months. It reveals notes of ripe pear, Granny Smith apple, white peach, acacia blossom, ginger, lime, aromatic herbs, flint and oyster shell. The palate is pure and precise. The fruit extraction is superb, the acidity finely chiselled and the finish lingering and saline.

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.