Cuvée Rika Pinot Noir

Duck breast with pomegranate-citrus glaze.

Jasper Raats is the shareholder, cellar master and managing director of Longridge Wine Estate, as well as partner in Vigneron Consulting, an international consulting business. The consultancy shares valuable knowledge to a select group of clients, particularly focusing on organic and biodynamic viticulture and oenology. In fact, it was through this consulting business that his relationship with Longridge first started. Jasper has established himself as one of the most talented winemakers in South Africa and first gained prominence for wines he created in New Zealand. In 2003, he started working as viticulturist and winemaker at New Zealand’s Clos Henri in the Marlborough region, developing a new vineyard and making wine for French Company, Henri Bourgeois. During this period, he also started Koru Wines, which became one of New Zealand’s top and most expensive wines. His international experience includes working in Burgundy, Pouilly Fume, Sancerre and in Napa and Sonoma under Pierre Seillan, the genial French creator of Vérité Wines.

The fruit for this exceptional Pinot Noir is sourced from a single vineyard in the Helderberg, grown on Longridge Wine Estate in a cool climate as the maritme climate from the Flase Bay cools the vineyard down. A minimum interference approach is taken in the vineyards to get a true reflection of the unique terroir of the cooler Stellenbosch Climate. A single vineyard wine, meticulously cared for by hand.

After natural yeast fermentation in small open tanks, the wine spent 14-15 months in a combination of 10% new and seasoned French oak.

This wine has been naturally fermented in small open top fermenters with no enzymes, preservatives or stabilisers.