Wild Child

Pair with a delectable pork fillet stuffed with apples and pecorino, and wrapped in bacon for the makings of a truly spectacular dinner party.

Although not intentionally award driven, there is no denying the status of this tiny family-owned Durbanville cellar. Strategically we are following a very traditional but personalised approach to making wine. In line with our brand honesty, we don’t try to be clever or practice contrived marketing jargon. We pick by hand, allowing us to leave the less perfect bunches for the soil to enrich itself – and before pressing, we again sort the individual grapes by hand. “We completely believe that beautiful wines come from day to day thoughtful management in the vineyards.” Our bottom line is that to be part of the Nitida family requires commitment, passion, and a desire to be involved. Our punch through system, while automated, was designed by the engineer in Bernhard to closely emulate a traditional hand-punch method. Of course, we do use modern technology for pressing and pumping, but always seek out the gentlest methods.

Once fermentation is completed, we leave the barrel-fermented portion to mature for another 3-4 months. Putting a portion of the wine into barrel, makes for a wonderful coating of the acidity while leaving enough freshness to make this wine utterly enjoyable and a fabulous companion to food.

What sets this wine apart, is “wild” yeast. This means that we do not add any commercial yeast to the wine to facilitate fermentation. We harvest Sauvignon blanc in stages – in this particular vintage, we went through the vineyards 30 different times, ensuring that all the grapes that come into the cellar is optimally ripe. After pressing the grapes, about half of this particular wine is transferred to older, small French barrels for the fermentation period. We take a small amount of clean juice back into the vineyard and leave the juice in the vineyard for a couple of days. This allows the wild yeast strains that is in our vineyards to inoculate the juice. Once the juice starts to wild ferment, we take it back into the cellar and add it to a bigger tank of clean juice to start fermentation. Think of it as a mother culture being added. Some winemakers are quite comfortable with this process, while others prefer being in control and struggle with allowing the wine to “do its thing in its own time”, as very often wild fermentation can slow down considerably towards the end of the process.