2018 Porseleinberg

The 2018 Porseleinberg is the first vintage where Callie Louw used a submerged cap during fermentation that he feels lent more structure. He undertook minimal pumpovers, and the ferment ran dry after ten days. This contains around 60% from the new vineyard. Aged for 12 months in 90% foudres and 10% concrete eggs, this has a very delineated bouquet with raspberry and blackberry fruit, warm gravel, clove and a touch of fennel, complex and involving. The palate is medium-bodied with a viscous texture, very harmonious and poised. It's pretty intense with a caressing, succulent finish. There is real elegance here, wonderful, vivacious black fruit with a noticeable dry extract on the finish. I used to think that the 2019 was better than the 2018, but juxtaposing them together now, it seems like the latter has just moved up a level.

100% Syrah. The 2018 vintage was another dry year with rainfall of 224 mm. What saved the vintage was the 60 mm rainfall we had from September to December. We had healthy growing conditions with moderately hot conditions in October. Small berries and bunches with intensely flavoured fruit was the result. Yields still very low at 3 t/ha. Harvest started during the first week of February. Grapes were hand-picked and crushed as whole bunches into concrete tanks. Submerged-cap fermentation was implemented in this vintage for the first time and was a huge success. Winemaker Callie Louw: ‘A friend was working at Jamet so we spent a whole afternoon tasting there. Jamet still uses whole bunch but also submerged cap.’ Louw had to make his own apparatus with the size of holes critical – they need to be 8 mm across. (He likes welding etc which ‘scares our health and safety guy’.) ‘There was talk about style change but the fruit is still there and I think we’ve bought a few more years in bottle. This wine makes itself now – it’s like making a cup of tea.’ Extract is 37 g/l cf 32 in the past. Minimal pumpovers were performed with the submerged cap, and the ferments ran cool and dry within 10 days. Maturation took place over 12 months in 90% foudre and 10% in concrete eggs. Bottled mid May 2019. TA 5 g/l, pH 3.9, RS 1.3 g/l. Flattering, mulberry nose. Salty and sweet and very juicy. Lots of fruit, and tannin only on the end. Tannin and liquorice on the finish. Very polished. Clean and fresh. Long. (JR)

The 2018 Porseleinberg is 100% whole-bunch-fermented in concrete; this is the first vintage that winemaker Callie Louw submerged the cap. It has a complex bouquet of blackberry, melted tar, clove and light garrigue aromas, all beautifully defined and focused, constantly changing in the glass. The palate is medium-bodied with sappy black fruit, touches of white pepper on the entry and firm tannins. This is very Old World in style, leading to a very peppery finish that is slightly drier and more saturnine than previous vintages. While not the greatest Porseleinberg I have tasted, it is a testament to its high standards that it still ranks among the best wines of the vintage.