It was only a short time ago when the Winelands breathed a sigh of relief as the intensity of the harvest season drew to a close.
As the autumn leaves fall and the temperatures begin to drop, winemakers and viticulturists can take a deep breath and rest, knowing they have successfully completed another year of hard work and dedication.
The dedication of the industry's finest is an essential ingredient in crafting the quality wines we enjoy drinking. The harvest is the culmination of hard work, experience and passion that is so immensely critical in crafting wine of elegance.
With the wine resting in the barrels it is the perfect time to pick the brains of our cellar team and get a feel for the quality of this year’s vintage.
Waterford vintage 2023
Waterford Estate’s cellarmaster and COO, Mark le Roux says the quality of the wine is looking superb. "The wines have settled after the fermentation and the characteristics of the wine have been exposed. The reds have spent some time in barrel now and are starting to show a little bit of character and along with the quality of the fruit that came into the cellar this is sure to be a stand-out vintage."
The growing season began strong with superb growing conditions but every season has its challenges, this season ended with some uncharacteristic rainfall during the picking season. This should have affected our Cabernet Sauvignon but the strength of the blocks and the vines are shining through and the quality is without doubt.
Mark confirmed the vineyard's strength by stating, "The vineyard is 25 years old now and has a deep root system that lessens the effect of inclement weather. The rain, wind and cold near the end of the season slowed the growth down a bit near the picking of the late varietals but with the heavier winds we experienced the risk of mold was alleviated thus leaving our vineyard clean and healthy."
The fermentation process is what makes wine, wine. It is an integral step in the winemaking process and is something that the winemakers focus on intensely as it could make or break their product. This year due to the cooler season Waterford Estate chose to control the ferments to run a little slower than usual. Mark said this was done to ensure we extracted the right amount of colour, structure and tannin in our wines while maintaining a good level of alcohol.
These actions need to be carefully monitored and it takes a dedicated team to ensure that all of the ferments go off without any issue. Assistant winemaker, Jamie Papenfus, reflects on the cellar teams’ performance, saying that "the whole team, permanent staff and interns, really worked well together and had a good time, we worked hard and we played hard".
Like fermentation, the selection of barrels for the red wines is an integral step in the winemaking process. Here at Waterford Estate we always tend to lean a little lighter on oaking our reds - it's our naturalistic ethos in winemaking.
This barrel selection process starts by looking at the season, the earlier picking varietals experienced warmer weather thus creating wines with more intensity in fruit, therefore we chose to use a slightly higher amount of new oak on that batch to allow the wines to properly integrate with the oak character.
The later harvesting reds spent more time on the vines thus leading to wines showing more structure and austerity therefore less new wood was used on this batch to ensure that the wine doesn't become too intense and that the wine still shows the fruit and terroir that our drinkers are so accustomed to. Jamie says that the standout varietal in her eyes is the Cabernet Sauvignon, despite the late rain in the harvest season it held itself up nicely and produced really good fruit.
All and all the harvest season was a success here at Waterford Estate, the cellar team was great this year, through sickness they were here and they showed a lot of toughness during this grueling season. The team however pushed through and grafted hard which was great.
"The interns were quick learners and jumped at the opportunity to help. I'm sure they both will excel in their careers ahead of them. All and all the team had a great personality this year which made opening some amazing bottles of wine after harvest worthwhile," says Mark.
We congratulate the winemaking and viticultural teams of the Cape Winelands, cheers to another successful vintage!
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