Merlot - Kleine Zalze Cellar Selection Merlot

A medium-bodied, soft elegant wine, with ripe plum and fruitcake aromas on the nose that carry through to the palate. These fruit flavours are complimented by a crisp, well integrated acidity and a cigar box velvety finish, affording this wine comfortable five year maturation potential.

Viticulture:
These grapes were cultivated and harvested from three different blocks on Kleine Zalze farm. Southerly sea breezes in the afternoon help to cool the Merlot grapes to ensure optimum ripening conditions. The vineyards were carefully pruned and suckered to ensure that optimum ripened grapes were harvested for the production of the 2009 Merlot Cellar Selection wine. For optimum ripeness and the colouring of the pips at lower sugar level, the efficient amount of leaves and crop were left and the production was lower through green bunch dropping to 5tons / ha.

Vinification:
The grapes were picked early in the morning hand-sorted, destalked and cold soaked at 12°C for three days. The juice was cool fermented until dry in stainless steel tanks on the skins before pressing. With enough tannin structure only the free-run juice were used and malolactic fermentation completed in third and fourth fill French oak barrels. The wine matured for 12 months whereafter it was blend and bottled.