Chardonnay

Grilled lobster tails with herb butter.

Hemel-en-Aarde is Afrikaans for “heaven and earth” and the claim is justified. Our estate sits on a particularly heavenly stretch of land beneath a lofty peak of the Babylon’s Tower mountain range. In addition to its unrelenting beauty Ataraxia is home to some of the most spectacular terroirs South Africa has to offer. In 2004 The Skyfields Farm was visioned into the Ataraxia wine label when husband and wife Kevin and Hanli Grant and a few friends purchased this 47-hectare prime vineyard property. More than a decade later we are associated with crafting wines of incredible finesse balance and depth; wines that proudly hold their own on the international wine stage.

11 months in 225L French oak barrels.

This vin de terroir is Ataraxia’s forward-looking BLACK Chardonnay. In our quest to accurately and authentically express the soul of our terroir (over trying to conjure an expression of the grape itself through winemaking alchemy), we first used this old, almost forgotten, traditional Burgundian method for the 2020 vintage, and have continued to do so ever since. Rather than pressing gently, the fruit was vigorously worked. It almost felt like an act of violence! Then, instead of denying the must (juice) oxygen, it was generously aerated. Black magic happened when juice as dark as ebony as it flowed from the press, was transformed into a shimmering, greentinted yellow hue by the end of fermentation. The science behind this method is that the more oxygen the must absorbs, the less oxygen is consumed by the wine, which then has more resistance against oxidative degradation (yellowing) during aging. Spontaneous and complete barrel fermentation and subsequent ageing in specially selected French oak barrels sourced exclusively from Burgundian coopers, comprised part of a gentle, minimalist, non-interventionist winemaking approach employed after the “bludgeoning” that occurred at the press. In this way we have crafted an astonishing and arrestingly authentic wine interpretation of a terroir ideally suited to Chardonnay.