Jan Fiskaal Merlot

Beef, Lamb, Veal

As budding young winemakers back in 2001, we sometimes struggled to find decent wines we could afford. My brother Philip and I were involved with our family winery (Joostenberg Wines) and José was busy at his (Stark-Condé Wines).We weren’t looking for rockstar bottles that cost a fortune. But we had pretty high standards (in our own opinion) and wanted wines we could enjoy with our friends, most of whom were also in the wine industry. We were wine geeks in need of an everyday wine. We saw a niche in the market and got to work but first had to come up with a name for this new project. To keep peace in the families, we took our wives’ initials (we each have one wife!) — and that is how we explained to Marie, Anette and Nicky that we were going to be “busy” most weekends. “It’s for you!” we told them. We immediately got to work in an old tractor shed and that first year, we made a total of 600 cases of Pinotage. – Tyrrel Myburgh, co-founder

Dry-farmed vineyards tend to produce smaller berries, and lower yields this year made for looser bunches. Red wines from this vintage have abundant aromas and nice dark colours. The tannins were well managed during harvest and will continue to develop well in the bottle. From several dry-farmed vineyards in the Agter-Paarl area. The Malmesbury Shale soils have excellent water retention ability and produce concentrated, flavourful grapes with small berries, making for juicy wines with balance and elegance.

The wine was matured in mostly American oak barrels for 12 months. For a softer profile, a small portion is left unoaked. Fined and filtered before bottling.

Grapes were hand-harvested and after crushing the grapes were fermented for over 7 days in stainless steel tanks with regular pump-overs. The wine was pressed and put back into tank for malolactic fermentation.