School of Wine

Trying to predict the ripening process of grapes especially if you want to time it to perfection is usually the wrong way of producing great wines. But sometimes situations calls for a little daring. Selma contacted me the other day for another Kairos wine weekend. And it seems after a bottle or what of wine that the time was put on the third weekend of February. With peaches and early grapes ripening 7 days earlier it seems to be a good guess that we might have a little earlier ripening.
The School of Wine - Kairos version - is a weekend in which a few people get around and try and do the whole process of wine making in a weekend. Now a good winemaker or informed wine drinker might tell you quickly this is impossible. Well it is.
This weekend will contain a tasting and welcoming braai in the House of Straw at Zelma's country estate. The tasting will be an introduction into wine styles of the region - Calitzdorp. It will be very informal.
The Saturday is started with a grape pick. After last years heat wave we decided to pick the bulk of the grapes earlier the week and cold store it. This will be followed by Zelma's country breakfast. Something to strengthen the muscles for the day to follow.
The first real action in winemaking is the crushing of the grapes. After which we must inoculate it with the yeast. Do the necessary additions. This will all be shown and the more confident can actually get the chance of doing it themselves. The midday program consist of punch throughs and later pressings. Doing the necessary tasting of the juice and maturing wine will also be part of the midday program.
Towards the end of the day we will be doing a pressing. Yes here we will need all the muscle we can get. The press is an 60 year old basket press.
The Saturday evening will be a quiet one with a wine movie.
The Sunday morning another pressing. This time the grapes harvested the previous day - Muscadel will be pressed and fortified. This will be the wine of the year for the students. Everyone will receive after bottling which take place later the year three bottles of the product as proof of their total commitment to producing quality wine.
The weekend will end with a brunch at Selma's.
If your are interested do contact the lady of the hour - Selma at 0825765855 and join us.
The wine which you will also be part of making will be a Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot and Petit Verdot. Withoek are planning to make a Bordeaux blend.

2011!!

For Withoek Boerdery the new year arrived silently. Because of the smaller apricot harvest we had a very quiet start to the year. We actually had a bit of spare time to clean up the farm and do some very much needed vineyard work.

Our young vines needed to be trained. We removed the extra young shoots and only the strongest survive. This strong shoot was also cut at the cordon wire and the top three buds left. From those three buds we will choose later the season the two strongest for the the cordons of the vine. The rest is all removed to limit the competition. In the old days this process will only take place after a years growth but with correct irrigation and fertilization we get enough growth to train it very much sooner. This means also sooner harvest and thus more economical vineyard.

The apricots will soon go through the summer pruning. This is needed to initiate new growth and wood. Keeps your trees healthier and more consistant in production.

We also look into the possible grafting of some of our plum trees to another cultivar. This process involves the cut down of the trees to creat new shoots and the grafting on this new shoots. I have personally never done this and looking forward to the experience.

The grape harvest looks good and we just hope the weather plays in our favour. It can rain but must just clear up quickly so that we don't get a wet humid climate which will promote fungi growth.