With the 2013 wines cheerfully in the cellar, in barrel and some in bottle already, herewith a glance at this year’s harvest:
2013 was a complex and therefore difficult harvest. The winter was just perfect with plenty of cold units and lots of rain and when we came to spring all looked really wonderful, except there was no rain in this coastal part of Stellenbosch from the 18th October for more than 3 months until the end of December. To add to this weird anomaly, we had the hottest December in many years and then January started out cool, truly an entirely upside down weather pattern.
So nature did its thing it tricked us, teased us, held us to ransom and finally if you had the where withal to hang on and be patient there were some incredible grapes to be harvested.
The whites were a simple tale of two halves, perfect or off the scale poor, the reds were way more complex and offered some truly unique and special pickings, we predict that 2013 will be the odd vintage, seemingly unpredictable, almost the "Burgundy" of vintages where the actual grower will be the deciding factor, more so than the region and the variety, patience was the name of the game.
A complex vintage by any measure, but certainly some intense, balanced wines, some brilliant depth, focus of fruit and intensity, for the patient producers.