This is my happy wine. It is filled to the brim with euphoria and smiles. It captures the essence of the endearing & captivating Wessel family by whom it is made. You can only imagine how happy I was (after begging Anne and Craig for more) when I discovered I had two bottles hidden away. Mid lockdown it was really what I needed, to soothe, to cheer, to lift my spirits, to brighten my day, my month, in fact my year!
So on Mother’s Day it was my gift to myself.
This is one of those wines that is so scrumptious that it is made to be enjoyed by everyone. You don’t have to be a wine connoisseur to appreciate it, hell you don’t even need to like wine to rejoice in this juice!
So what is it about this wine that conjure up so much joy, apart from the Wessel spirit? – Its 100 % Grenache – and Grenache is like bacon – everyone loves it. (Even vegans they just won’t admit it 😉 And like bacon when made in this style you can have Grenache for breakfast – like alcoholic cranberry juice – but way better! – It’s carbonic macerated – so without getting too geeky this is a very cool winemaking technique of getting the juice out of the grape in the most gentle way possibly. They put the whole bunches into the bottom of a stainless steel tank and fill it with dry ice, and close it for a couple of weeks. creating an anaerobic atmosphere without any oxygen. Minus the oxygen, fermentation—yeast eating sugar and producing alcohol—begins inside the individual grapes. Eventually the grapes end up bursting from the weight of the alcohol they are producing. The result is an irresistibly juicy fruit-forward wine with bright acidity & low tannins. – It’s from the Hemel en Aarde – aka my favourite wine area in South Africa.
– Did I mention my favourite colour is yellow?
The result is a gorgeously bright wine bursting with brilliant red fruit; raspberry coulis, pomegranate, ruby red grapefruit, black currant fruit pastels with a faint line of cinnamon spiced orange rind. A mouth watering vibrant acidity.
