Shiraz

This wine will go well with creamy blue cheese, camembert and sharp cheddar. Otherwise, enjoy the Shiraz when you have a steak braai (barbeque) or a dark venison pie. The Quoin Rock Shiraz will also complement braised short ribs, venison medallions and lamb tagine. On its own, it expresses all the characters of Shiraz that lovers of this variety enjoy.

The name Quoin Rock found its inspiration from the Agulhas area the most southern tip of Africa where Quoin Point is the second most southernly point and where Quoin Rock Wines’ conservation farm Boskloof is located. Ships rounding the cape on their way back from or to markets in the east from the mid-1400’s to these modern times would stop over at the cape of good hope — todays Table Bay Harbour Cape Town to replenish their boats with fresh produce. Farms like Quoin Rock would rush produce to the harbour and from the late 1660’s wines from South Africa started forming part of the goods delivered to the port. Now just over 350 years later South African wines are still exported from Table Bay harbour. While wine production is the main activity at Quoin Rock in Stellenbosch the Agulhas farm Boskloof focuses on conservation. Bontebok springbok eland and zebra have been reintroduced to this area.

The grapes for this wine came from Quoin Rock vineyards situated in the lower areas of the Simonsberg. In summer, the north-facing vines get lots of sun and heat but are tempered by cooling winds from the south. The Hutton and Clovelly soils drain well and promote vigorous growth with lots of fruit expression.

The Shiraz was left to age in 50% new French oak 225-litre and 500-litre barrels. After spending 22 months in barrels, the wine was blended and bottled, whereafter it spent four years in the bottle before being released.

Our Shiraz grapes were harvested in March 2018 and then fermented in concrete open casks, some French oak barrels and stainless-steel tanks. For the first two-thirds of the fermentation period, we punched down the wine up to five times per day for optimal extraction, and for the remaining time, we did gentle pump-overs. We then left it on the skins for 21 days of post fermentation maceration before pressing took place. Thereafter, malolactic fermentation took place in barrels for optimal oak integration.