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Fusion
News
THE NEWSLETTER
OF DE TOREN PRIVATE
CELLAR August
2004 |
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Diversity
Gamma Performs
in local and overseas competitions |
De
Toren Fusion V 2002 Matches
our maiden (1999) release for
elegance |
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Our Diversity
Gamma (2002) was entered in one local and one overseas
competition recently. In the Buitenverwachting Christine
2000 Bronze Ernie Els Wines
2001
Bronze Kanonkop Paul Sauer
2000
Commended Rust & Vrede
2000
Commended The South African Bordeaux
varietal Trophy went to In The Trophy went to
Havana
Hills Du Plessis Reserve. There were 4 Silver medals and 31 Bronze
medals. As our second label and at ħR 95.00
per bottle we believe our Diversity
range delivers excellent value for money. |
During the month
of June we had the opportunity to do vertical tasting of the first 4
releases of De Toren Fusion V at a Master class Tasting in It was amazing how
well the participants did in identifying the the individual
varietals. From here they
went to evaluate the 1999, 2000, 2001 and 2002 vintages. The 1999 (maiden)
vintage is really showing its finesse and elegance at the moment. The 2000
and 2001 vintages are bigger and bolder wines and needs some more time in
the bottle. On the other hand the 2002 vintage resembles the 1999 vintage
in elegance and was described as a "beautiful food
wine" This report of the
elegance in the 2002 Fusion V confirms the trend to move away from overly
extracted and bold |
wines. Visionary
Australian Winemaker Brian Croser commented on red blends in Wine Magazine
S A, after the Trophy Wine Show in Cape Town: "South African winemakers
have just tried to kill us" [with excessive tannins]. He said He was
concerned that too few wines in this class were true to their origins,
displaying instead the "heavy hand of the wine maker." Wines that were
overly tannic were palate-numbing and made judging difficult, he
explained. "If we missed the bright fruity wines, then blame it on those
producers making an astringent style." De Toren Fusion V
2002 was not entered for this competition. We invite you to
taste the 2002 Fusion V and decide for yourself.
Does the 2002
Fusion V resemble the description of the Fairburn judges or does it show
the complex elegance of its much older brother
(1999)?
Hot
off the press: Richard
Kelly MW ( |
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Back
to the Traditional (Secrets of our Success Part 7) | |
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Basket pressing is
synonymous with good red wine production. That is why at De Toren we chose
an old traditional style basket press to press our skins. We chose an
Italian press that has a hydraulic press with a pressure regulator.
The pressure however is
regulated personally by our wine maker |
that too much tannin is
being released, he stops pressing. One can imagine that a cake of skins
forms in the press. When this cake is analysed, we often still find whole
berries that have not burst in the press. This again is part of our
philosophy of treating our grapes softly, softly, gently,
gently. The pressed juice is
blended in immediately with the free run juice and is then prepared for
the secondary malolactic fermentation
process. By the beginning of August
each year we start filling the oak barrels with wine for the ageing
process. All varietals are aged separately. Specially selected 225 Litre
French Oak barrels are used for the ageing process. Each varietal is
matched to a different brand of oak barrel, with oak coming from different
parts of Our Malbec of course gets
the treatment of specially selected American Oak
Barrels. |
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See us
at Winex Cape Town |
Boules
at De Toren | |
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The annual Winex Wine
Exhibition will be held in the Cape Town Exhibition Centre on 8, 9 and 10
September 2004. We will again be collecting your business cards so that we
can keep you informed by e mail on developments at our Cellar.
..
Look out
for our familiar black table cloth on our stand
On the
last evening we will draw a lucky winner. The prize - A Magnum of De Toren
Fusion V 2000 Directors
Reserve. This is a wine that was never released
in |
When GrapeWorx presented De TOREN with the Golden Grape Award in April 2004, the
festivities led into an impromptu evening of
Boules.
In the picture from left to
right- Sonette, Nigel Cattermole, Lindsay Mc Gregor, Clive
Torr and Mark Norrish noted the new
stone, freshly laid in our car park and remembered that his boulles were
in his car. Nigel Cattermole then remembered his kit was in the car
as well. The rest is
history.
Who won? It is fair to say we can not |
remember!!! Mark Norrish
did promise a return match and this time we will keep score. Note our
special lighting supplied by the vehicles of our
guests.
Wade Metzer's boule is in mid air with Be sure we will be
reporting on the next event, wherever it is
hosted. |
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De
Toren Fusion V 2003 Blended | ||
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Our policy
has always been that the consumer should be the final judge of our wine.
For this reason we this year expanded our tasting panels to determine the
final blend of the 2003 vintage. First of all
Nevertheless
a winner does get selected and the winner has never been one of the
previous vintages that were slipped in, in the line
up. |
through the
same procedure, again appointing the best wine. In the line up would
be the best wine from the first tasting and the previous year's
vintage. At the end of
the evening we took the 2 best (winners of each session) wines and put
them forward to the next panel. Again we
proceeded with the same sequence of events and another 4 blends were made
up for the final tasting. This tasting included the winners of the
previous 2 line-ups, the previous vintage and 4 more attempts to improve
the wine. The best
blend is chosen after the 3rd session and then The final
blend of the 2003 vintage is as follows: Cabernet
Sauvignon 55% Merlot 18% Malbec 14% Cabernet
franc 9.5% Petit
Verdot 2.8% |
If you would
like to take part in the panel tasting of Fusion V next year, please e
mail us and we will put you on the waiting
list. Contact
us: Visit our
Website www.de-toren.com Email us
at: info@de-toren.com Phone us
at: +27(0)21 881
3119 Fax us
at: +27(0)21 881 3335
Until next time. . .
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