March has been a month of hard work and celebration at Flagstone, as harvest comes to an end and the cellar buzzes with new vintages in the making. As we step into April, we’re sharing a glimpse of what’s been happening and what’s on the horizon. Sit back, relax, and catch up on all the latest!
Wine on promotion: 26 March - 5 April 2025
Poetry Sauvignon Blanc 2024
Was: R570.00 per case
Now: R381.90 per case
Fiona Pinot Noir 2022
Was: R1 170.00 per case
Now: R783.90 per case
Word of Mouth Viognier 2022
Was: R900.00 per case
Now: R603.00 per case
Writer's Block 2021
Was: R2 370.00 per case
Now: R1 587.90 per case
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Food and wine pop-up events
Join us at Flagstone Wines on 28-29 March and 4-5 April for a laid-back afternoon filled with great food, Flagstone wines and a relaxed atmosphere. Gather your friends and make the most of the season with good company and delicious bites.
Pop-up menu: 28 and 29 March
As a starter
Potato Gnocchi with roasted tomato pasatta, homemade ricotta and parmesan oregano crumble - R100
As a mains
Tuscan chicken with sun-dried tomatoes, orecchiette pasta and crisp broccolini - R145
Dessert
Apricot and frangipane tart with limoncello mascapone gelato - R90
Pop-up menu: 4 and 5 April
As a starter
Cured duck breast with orange water dressing, orange puree, fennel and crisp breads - R110
As a mains
Pan seared linefish with gremolata potatoes, olive tapenade blush tomatoes and courgette ribbons - R145
Aged rump steak with glazed balsamic beetroot, potato rosti, seared greens, tarragon and goats cheese bake - R160
Dessert
Ginger crème caramel with Hanepoot roasted peaches and cinnamon snap biscuit - R90
To book your table, email flagstone.wines@accoladewines.com, or call our tasting room at 021 850 5891. We can’t wait to see you there!
Meet Shaun McVey, Southern Africa distributor manager
Shaun joined Flagstone/Accolade in November 2023 and bring with him 20 years’ worth of experience working with some of South Africa’s top Wine Estates and Distribution Companies. When not selling or talking about wines, Shaun can be found walking his dogs in Tokai Forrest, playing backyard cricket with his young son or enjoying a glass of wine with his wife.
Word from the winemaker
Sitting in my office early Saturday morning and looking over the Helderberg mountains I can see nature indicating the changing of the season. The poplar trees’ leaves are starting to turn colour, and the long weekend has brought some much-needed rain. The skies are dark and grey towards Cape Town and making us hopeful for a good winter. Although we are very grateful for the rain, we just need another week of no rain to finish our picking season with some Stellenbosch Cabernet Sauvignon still hanging, and we are hopeful to be able to pick it by the end of next week.
Winemaking is a bit like the year, with different seasons. We are now slowly transitioning from the picking and fermentation season of summer towards the season of reflection, autumn. The next season in winemaking involves tasting, evaluating, and reflecting on what the season has given us. We then already start allocating tanks and batches to certain products and make notes of what worked this season and what needs changing.
April month will still see us finishing off the last fermentations with currently still six fermentations only starting now and then another seven finishing. Then we still need to press all thirteen and thereafter fill them into barrels for malolactic fermentation. Malolactic fermentation or MLF (the term winemakers use) is a bacterial fermentation that occurs after alcoholic fermentation. The bacteria convert malic acid to lactic acid. The reason why we do this for red wines is that it reduces acidity, adds complexity and the main reason is microbial stability.
We then monitor the MLF weekly and when completed we rack the wines out of the barrels into tanks. We taste each batch with a few trials and do a sulphur dioxide addition before we transfer the wine back into the steamed and washed barrels for further ageing. This process takes some time and we normally have around 40-50 different batches going through this process and the last of the batches normally completes MLF by the end of June at the latest.
We are also still finishing off the last of our white fermentations and we will be racking the wines off their gross lees and then maturing the wines on the fine lees. We then also do bâtonnage (French term for stirring settled lees back into wine) on the white wines and taste them weekly to determine when we can stop this process.
We are also busy putting the first white wines together for bottling and first on the list for Flagstone is Poetry Chenin Blanc, scheduled for bottling in April.
In the vineyards we are preparing the vines for a well-deserved rest with post-harvest fertilisation and irrigation where possible. This helps the vines build up reserves in their roots that they then utilise in spring at budding before there are leaves that can photosynthesise.
I wish you all a blessed and restful Easter with a few days away from work and recouping. I know we all look forward to it.