Cabernet Sauvignon

Beef, Lamb, Poultry

Stark-Condé Wines is located in the picturesque Jonkershoek Valley in Stellenbosch. It is a dramatic valley with steep changes in vineyard elevation from 150 to 600 metres making for a range of sites with distinct characteristics. At Stark-Condé they stick to traditional winemaking methods: open tank fermentation meticulous sorting of grapes hand-punchdowns basket pressing and maturation in small French oak barrels.

The grapes for this wine are from 4 different Cabernet vineyards and our best Petit Verdot, Malbec and Cabernet Franc vineyards, all at a range of different elevations. Although all are on the decomposed granite soils typical of the hillsides in Jonkershoek, the soil textures cary quite a lot and that, together with the differences in elevations and clones, gives a variety of different flavour profiles to the grapes. The Malbec and Cabernet Franc grapes were picked early March, and the Cabernet Sauvignon and Petit Verdot grapes were harvested in mid-March.

Only 300l French oak was used, of which about 20% were new. Bottled without fining and with no filtration after 20 months barrel maturation.

After being cold-soaked for a couple of days the juice underwent fermentation with the natural yeast for about 10 days on the skins. The fermentations were hand punched-down every 4 hours for the first half of fermentation and every 6-8 hours until dry. At dryness, the wine was pressed and racked to barrel for malo-lactic fermentation and barrel maturation.