Estate Blend

The Alto Estate Blend pairs perfectly with smoked red meat and beef fillet, as well as with mature cheese, rich poultry and Spanish or Italian style dishes.

Alto is a farm with a rich history befitting its status as one of the icon estates of the Western Cape winelands. The first title deeds date back to 1693 but it was only in 1919 that the farm was given over entirely to vineyard. That was thanks to the foresight of the farmer Manie Malan who together with his father Hennie recognised that the property’s unique aspect soils and slopes were ideal for crafting full-bodied red wines. They named the farm Alto homage to both the farm’s altitude and the family’s pursuit of excellence. The cellar and homestead they built still stand on the estate today. The Malan’s nurtured and expanded these vineyards for four decades before selling the property to Piet du Toit in 1959. On purchasing the farm Du Toit employed a team of experts to evaluate the terroir and soils and confirm if the right cultivars were planted across the estate. The consensus? Manie Malan’s intuition couldn’t be faulted. Alto was and remains the realm of superlative red wines. In 1983 Piet retired handing the honour of Alto winemaker to his son Hempies du Toit a man as famous for his exploits on the rugby field as in the wine cellar. With the turn of the century came a new winemaker in Schalk van der Westhuizen who further cemented Alto’s reputation in South Africa and abroad. In 2015 he continued the Alto tradition of passing the baton down through the generations with his son Bertho van der Westhuizen becoming only the fifth winemaker in Alto’s long history.

A cool growing season following the cold, wet Cape winter of 2021 resulted in our grapes ripening slower than usual, allowing for more deeply concentrated flavours. This wine is made from grapes of north-facing vines, between 14 and 28 years old, that grow in decomposed granite soil situated at altitudes of 135m to 500m above sea level. The vines on the higher slopes are fanned by the cooling maritime breezes from nearby False Bay. A seven-wire Perold trellising system is used, which yielded an average of 7 tons per hectare.

Malolactic fermentation took place in barrel, racked once and matured for 18 months in 70% new French oak barrels.

The 3 grape varieties used in this blend ripen at different times and were harvested at 24° to 25° Balling. Each varietal was vinified separately and fermented on the skins for 7 to 21 days at 24° to 26°C in closed stainless-steel tanks. The fermenting mash was pumped over several times a day.