Cederberg Sandpoort Sauvignon Gris 2023, South Africa's first certified Sauvignon Gris
This is a wine with a story to tell! Introducing the bottling of South Africa’s first certified Sauvignon Gris. A delightfully concentrated wine with a unique character and a penchant for pairing with good food.
Vinification unveiled: Sauvignon Gris finds a home in the Cederberg
“We planted our first Sauvignon Gris vines on sandstone soils up in the Sandpoort area in 2018, just 0.7 hectares, so it’s a super-small site. It’s a mutation of Sauvignon Blanc, so it looks exactly the same as Sauvignon, but about three weeks before harvest, the skins start turning a lovely, slightly pinkish-grey colour. The grapes for this vintage were hand-harvested in the early morning at 23.5 °B on 24 February 2023,” says David Nieuwoudt of this exciting new limited-release wine.
It was a naturally good fit as this variety fares well in warmer climates and is known for having naturally lower yields that deliver good acidity and excellent concentration of flavour.
“It’s a cultivar with a thicker skin so the grapes were whole bunch pressed and then naturally fermented in two 400-litre French oak barrels. This was a very small batch so less than a thousand bottles were produced.
“The Cederberg Sandpoort Sauvignon Gris 2023 has got this gorgeous tangerine-orange, nutty component on the nose. But I think that the real charm is on the palate. It has this silky, velvety, glycerol, waxy texture on the palate and has got serious length.
“This is a very charming and rare wine, so enjoy every sip. Cheers!” concludes David.
The rich history behind Cederberg’s Sandpoort Sauvignon Gris 2023
“Sauvignon Gris is a fantastic cultivar that I first came across almost 20 years ago at a tasting in Chile, South America. I literally fell in love with it!” says David Nieuwoudt. “A mutation of Sauvignon Blanc, it looked exactly the same to me at first until I got to know it more intimately and work with it myself. Now we are thrilled to announce the first official release of this variety in South Africa with the launch of the Cederberg Sandpoort Sauvignon Gris 2023.”
The limited-quantity Cederberg Sandpoort Old Ways Sauvignon Gris 2022 was South Africa’s first certified wine bottled from this variety, grown in these rugged mountains by David and his friend-in-wine Julio Bouchon, whose great-grandfather first planted Sauvignon Gris in Chile in 1912. The first material came into South Africa from the ENTAV repository in France in 2010 and it was in quarantine for seven years, so exercising a lot of patience was required!
“That’s how Vititec, which has the most extensive range of cultivars, clones and rootstocks in the country, produces a virus-free plant, the ‘mother’ block,” explains Cederberg Wines’ viticulturist Dirk de Bruyn.
“They take a plant and cut out a tiny bud under a microscope. It’s actually amazing to witness as you can’t see it with the naked eye, only under a microscope. Out of that a plant grows and they cut another bud under the microscope and then repeat the process for seven consecutive years. Then the plant grows small roots and gets planted in a soil or nutrient-source base in the nursery. And, when that plant starts to grow, they harvest the eyes and that’s what we actually planted here in the Cederberg!”