Family Reserve Chenin Blanc

Shellfish, Spicy food, Lean fish, Mild and soft cheese

Kleine Zalze wines are marked by a classical structure and complexity matched by a vibrant flavour intensity. Discernibly South African in style, they are refreshing, beautifully balanced and well-suited to food. Our wines are made according to traditional methods with minimal cellar intervention, but supported by modern equipment.

The Family Reserve Chenin Blanc 2023 was crafted from different wards in Stellenbosch where vines grow mainly on decomposed granite soils, each contributing to the complexity of the wine. 2023, as in 2022, is also certified as made from Heritage Vineyards, which are predominantly bush vines. The canopy of the bush vines was suckered and tipped to ensure a cool microclimate around the bunches with no direct sun and without botrytis. The run-up to the season was characterized by a warm and dry winter and spring, resulting in drier than usual soil conditions at the onset of the growing season. This resulted in earlier budbreak and flowering, and as such also promising an earlier than usual harvest.

The wine spent an extra 8 months on the lees in the respective fermentation vessels, with no fining or filtration before bottling.

The grapes were picked separately between 21 and 23°balling, reductively crushed and the resulting juice given 12 -18 hours skin contact prior to settling. After only 1 day of settling, the slightly turbid juice was racked off its gross lees to a stainless steel tank where it was inoculated with selected slow fermenting yeast strains . The juice was then gravity fed into 400L French oak barrels, Italian Terracotta Amphora and concrete eggs for fermentation, with 70% of the final blend made up of the barrel fermented component. No new oak was used to preserve the delicate flavours of Chenin Blanc.