Apogée Syrah

Beef, Lamb, Game (deer, venison), Poultry

The heart of our conviction is simple yet deliberate. Trust the Site. 20 years ago, Peter Clarke founded the farm up in the cool heights of the Hemel-en-Aarde Ridge. Here, in a natural and beautiful ampitheatre, he chose the purity of planting dryland vineyards on virgin soils. Each block is exposed to unique aspects of soil and climate, rewarding us with layered and complex fruit that provides the foundation for our wines that are unveiled in our cellar to reveal their full expression of terroir and vintage.

These Walker Bay vineyards of Hemel-en-Aarde Ridge are situated within close proximity to the Atlantic Ocean. The maritime climate being more “temperate” in style, where parallel mountain ranges channel the southerly sea breezes through the appellation during the summer. These winds in turn bring regular sea mists and overcast conditions to the valley and with it more even temperatures. The average temperature is 19°C and rainfall, approximately, 750mm per year.

The wine spent 12 months in barrel before being removed and blended in a stainless steel tank in and kept for a further 6 months. This was done to give the wine time to homogenise where after it was filtered and bottled.

All grapes were harvested by hand in cool early morning temperatures and left overnight in a cold room. The next morning 15% of the ferment was left as whole bunch and the rest was destemmed to a stainless steel fermenter. The must was left to cold soak for three days before the cooling was turned off and it was allowed to naturally heat up to atmospheric temperatures where after alcoholic fermentation occurred spontaneously. Once fermentation was completed the wine was left on skins for a period of 7 days wherafter the wine was softly pressed off from the skins. The wine was placed in older French oak barrels for maturation.