|
|
F usion News THE NEWSLETTER OF DE TOREN PRIVATE CELLAR April 2004 | |||
|
De
Toren Fusion V 2001 now appointed the best red wine in
| ||||
|
We reported in our last newsletter that our Fusion V 2001 was voted best red wine at the prestigious Winex Exhibition held in Johannesburg towards the end of October 2003. This wine show is open to the public and saw over 9000 wine enthusiasts converging on the Sandton Convention Centre over 3 days. The public were encouraged to vote for the best wine on show in red and white wine categories. Our De Toren Fusion V 2001 was voted the best red wine on show! | ||||
 |
||||
Now GrapeWorx - a We now have the specialists and the public agreeing and this accolade underscores the recent performance of our 2000 Vintage in the WeinWisser search for the World's best Cabernet based wine (Switzerland 2002). Here the public placed Fusion V 5th and the judges placed Fusion V - 10th out of an array of the World's top red wines including Chateau Mouton Rothschild, Mas La Plana from Miguel Torres, Merryvale from Napa, Robert Mondavi, Viader from Napa, Chateau Montose - Bordeaux, Bin 707 from Penfolds, Almaviva from Argentina, Sassicaia from Tuscany, Col Solare from Piero Antinori and many more.......(For full results of WeinWisser see our newsletter May 2003 on www.de-toren.com) |
||||
|
DE TOREN FUSION V 1999 achieves R 500 (US$ 80.00)per bottle AT 30th NEDERBURG AUCTION | ||||
|
The
30th Nederburg Auction was held at Nederburg in Paarl on 2 and
|
many
milestones: ·
It
was the 30th Auction held by Nederburg. ·
It
was the 30th time that ·
It
was also the 70th birthday of the retired at this prestigious
event. |
Nederburg
Cellar Master, Gunther Brozel. ·
It
was the first entry for De Toren Fusion V Ten cases of De Toren Fusion V
1999 was ventured. The price achieved was the highest ever for a maiden
vintage wine. Ten cases were sold for R 53 400 + Vat - R 60 870.00 or R 6 087 per
case. The
buyer was A G Morris International - so alas - we will not see the wine in
South Africa | ||
|
The banning of elements of torture (The Secrets of our Success, Part 6) | ||||
|
We de-stem only.
No berries are crushed. We believe in forcefully breaking the skin of the
berries, harsh tannins are released which otherwise would stay in the
skins. We have no screws
or worms that can further damage skins. Our whole berries rather drop into
bins and these bins are transported by forklift and poured into
fermentation tanks
Destemmed berries being
poured into the fermenting tank. Notice the whole
berries |
Moving wine around the cellar has developed into a
new art. Below is our "pump"! Our pump is a unique device that enables us to
achieve a 100% gravity fed cellar. In De Torens'
tower you will find a 4000l pressure vessel that moves 1 storey below
ground level and 1 storey above roof level. To get
the |
wine from the fermenters we
drop the tank below floor level, connect the pipes, open the valves and
the wine flowsfreelyinto the pressure tank. To
get the wine into another tank or barrel we simply lift the pressure
vessel to a suitable height and again the juice runs freely. We even
bottle from our pressure
vessel.
In the
background a view of the tower exterior and new storage tanks being
delivered in the foreground.. | ||
|
DIVERSITY
GAMMA RELEASED | ||||
|
This wine brings across all the violet flavours of
Cabernet franc and combines well with the black currant and red currant
flavours of Merlot. The firm tannins are already accessible making this
wine ideal to drink now or to age over the next 5 years. Ask for it at
your dealers or contact us direct | ||||
|
De
Toren Fusion V 2002 to be released | ||||
|
TASTING
NOTES: An
enigma of flavours is revealed as the wine opens up. With time delicate
and voluptuous raspberry, black currant, liquorice and sweet oak flavours
come to the front. The palette shows off a long lingering subtle caramel
after taste.
.Satin is the dress she is wearing and there is enough
charisma in this wine that it can be enjoyed way into the future. This
elegant lady sets the ambience
. DECANTING: This
wine will benefit tremendously if it is decanted at least one hour before
consumption. MATURATION
IN BARRELS: Aged
in a climatized barrel room (16degrees Celsius
at 80% humidity) for 12 months in 50% new and 50% second fill, 225liter
Oak barrels. Ninety percent French Oak and Malbec had the benefit of the
ten percent American Oak. |
VARIETIES: Cabernet
Sauvignon
60% Cabernet
Franc
8% Merlot
14% Malbec
14% Petit
Verdot
4% ANALYSIS: Alcohol
14,5%vol Sugar
2.89 g/l Acidity
5.94 g/l pH
3.60 PRODUCTION: 3670
X 12 cases 1500
Magnums produced | |||
|
2004
Harvest Report By
The season was looking good. Everyone was looking
forward to the 2004 harvest , the cellar was
cleaned several times and we were waiting for the grapes ,patiently, and
waiting and waiting
AND THEN
it was all ripe at the same time. This is what the vintage looked
like: The early cultivars was 2-3weeks late and the late
one ( Cabernet Sauvignon ) right on time. We had
peak hour traffic all the way when we
started. At one stage we had to press on one day and
harvest the next. The cellar has 40 tons of open tank fermentation space
and about 18 ton closed tanks that we also can use IN CASE OF EMERGENCY.
So in total 17 tanks could be used for fermentation. We were fermenting 16
of these tanks at one stage with Merlot, Malbec, Cab Franc , Petit Verdot and our
young block of Cabernet Sauvignon. What stood out this year was the fact that we had
low acidity , so we had to add citric acid. Some
grapes had low nutritional values so additional nutrition was needed in
order for the yeasts to complete alcoholic
fermentation. Despite having the pile up of grapes in two weeks
the wine looks promising and flavours are satisfying in order to produce a
Fusion V in 2004 - but like we say the quality will only be determined
once we have to put it in the bottle. |
2004 harvest All five factors of our terroir came into harmony to give us an unique season. Soil: after analizing the aerial images and taking +-150 soil samples we did some first aid to spesific areas in the blocks. By correcting the soil the vines grew more homogene, creating a good foundation for an optimal harvest With the winter rainfall beiing 16% lower than the lta the water reserves were a worring factor for us. To optimise the water to our disposal we brought in dr hoffmann and phillip myburgh, both experts on irrigation, to advise us. To get the optimal effect of prd and stressing the vines to the optimal levels, we started using the watermark to complement the use of already in use neotron probes. This gave us the opportunity to compare the two messuring tegniques and enabled us to understand the diverent soil tipes water holding capacities. We could ajust our irrigation scedules to ensure an optimal condition for our grapes to rippen en ensures the unique flavours in the berries. The very cold winter of 2002 had a deffenit effect on the unequal budding as wel as the later budding. This caused an uneven flowering, cane growth and bunch development. The cooler somer was the reason for a vigerous grotwh of the cannopy early in the season. Later in the season at pie size the grotwh slowed down, leaving us with a cannopy of between 1.2 to 1.4 m. A big persentage of green bunches were dropped at viarazon to avoid an uneven harvest. Desease and pest control was a walk in the park. We did not experience any major downy or powdery mildew presures during the growing season. The 20mm rain we had prior to our cab harvest was a worring factor for us due to the risk of botritus. Luckely the wind blew just after the rain and any chances of botritus developing were blown away. Harvesting: the aerial images that was taken prior to harvest enabled us to harvest the different sections of each block seperately. Due to verriance in viqour of the different sections the berries rippen at different times and therefore harvested seperately. |
Scientifically
advanced new vineyards We have finally removed
our old block of chardonnay vines and this year will be replanting to some
more Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot and Malbec. We believe the vineyards will
be prepared to the latest scientific data available from the research
departments at the First of all we dug 82
profile holes over the 4.5 ha property. (4 x more than normal) This
revealed a lot more complex soil structure than normal and was verified by
the new EM 38
.. machine that electronically
measures soil density,
minerals and
..
Bulldozer deep ploughing the new land
Planting direction is now
so positioned that we will make full use of the cool sea breezes. Normal
row direction is east- west. The new row direction will be north- east to
south- west. From the Polkadraai Hills our rows
will be facing Cape Point. Planting row width has been reduced to 1,8 meters and planting width will vary from 900mm to
1,5meters depending on the soil structures. We eagerly await our first
crop in 2006!!! | ||
|
|
|
Until next time....
|
||
