Culinary Arts Award

THE CAIA 2005 AWARDS

The Culinary Arts Institute of Africa and Emily's recently presented awards to a selected group of the Top 21 wine producers and the 100 most food friendly wines on the Emily's 2005 wine list.

Peter Veldsman is the owner of the famous Emily's Restaurant in the Cape Town Waterfront. His Culinary Arts Institute of Africa chose De Toren Private Cellar as one of the top 21 wineries in South Africa and the De Toren Fusion V 2001 as one of the top 100 most food friendly wines on the Emily's wine list. On the 7th of February 2005 Peter presented the accolades to the recipients in the restaurant.

Staying focussed can be a challenge

At the start of the 2005 vintage we invested in a new vibrating sorting table, offering us a secondary process to sort through individual berries. After destemming, whole berries are deposited onto the vibrating table which allows them to be spaced out next to one another. All stems that might fall through the destemmer are removed, and care is taken to remove all unwanted berries as well. This is just one further step to insure that only the very best berries are destined for Fusion V and Diversity, and is also in keeping with our philosophy - " If you can't eat them, ditch 'em ! 
De Toren Newsletter May 2005
Diversity Delta Released

On 1 April 2005 we released the 2003 vintage of Diversity. This year the Diversity is expressed in the following proportions.

Blend:  
Merlot 26%
Cabernet Sauvignon  24%
Cabernet Franc    19%
PetitVerdot  18%
Malbec 13%
   
Analysis:  
Alcohol 13.5% vol
Sugar 1,48g/l
Acidity 5,97g/l
pH  3,58

This is how Albie Koch describes the wine:

"Diversity: This is an unforgettable wine that lingers on the palate with sensuous flavours of strawberries, youngberries and blackcurrant. A subtle hint of oak adds another elegant layer, and ensures a lasting impression. The wine will improve in the bottle over the next few years. Decant before serving to enjoy to the full."

Comments on Fusion V 2003

The De Toren Fusion V 2003 will be released later on this year. This exceptional vintage has given us the classic red fruit flavours with still the distinctive Fusion V nose.

Below is how Albie describes the wine:

"This stunning vintage has produced a harmonious classic full structure with voluptuous soft red fruit flavours that continuously compete to dominate one another as this wine spends time in the glass. Strawberries, black currant, liquorice and sweet oak flavours are rounded off with fine cinnamon and caramel fudge, which presents a wine with an exceptional mid-palate, and lingering finish. 

The well balanced tannin structure in combination with the wine's intense flavours will ensure that

this great vintage stands proud as it improves in the bottle over the next couple of years."

DECANTING:
This wine will benefit tremendously if it is decanted at least one hour before consumption.

VARIETIES:  
Cabernet Sauvignon 55%
Merlot 18%
Malbec 14,5%
Cabernet Franc   9,5%
Petit Verdot  3%
   
ANALYSIS:  
Alcohol 14.5% vol
Sugar 2.4g/l
Acidity 5.94g/l
pH  3.57

Snail Control

2 years ago we initiated an ingenious method of dealing with our snail problem, harvesting them by hand supplying them to a processor who exported escargot to France. The strengthening of the Rand forced us to shelve the idea, however the motivation for an eco-friendly solution was still there. The introduction of 50 young ducklings into our vineyards this year solved this problem with a quack & a waddle. They had a ball and De Toren has no snails!

Secrets of Our Success
Oak Treatment

We have implemented an oak ageing strategy to ensure maximum complexity in our wines. Each varietal is matched to oak from a different area in France. The varietals are matched in such a way to extract maximum expression from the cultivar. Our Cabernet Sauvignon for instance is aged in Oak emanating from the forests near Burgundy, our

Malbec is aged in American Oak barrels and Cabernet franc from the oak forests in Marmande, south of Bordeaux. By combining our 14 different clones over 5 varietals and then the differing flavours from the different oak components, we strive for the most complex possible wine!

Harvest Report Ernest Manual

2005 harvest

      The 2004 winter was yet again dry and warm. Due to this the vines dropped their leaves at a very late stage and therefore the vines were very low on reserves as the new growing season started.
      We had nice hot spring weather which ensured an optimal budding period. In October we had 100 mm nutrient enriched thunderstorm rains. The canopies grew vigorously and the competition between the growing tips and the flowers created looser bunches. Due to the lack of moisture in the soil, the berries turned out smaller and easily obtained the desired sugar levels.

      The ripening seasons was warm but more moderate than the long term average. This ensured a slow and even ripening of the berries. There were very few windy days, enabling the vineyards to function optimal throughout the ripening stages.

      All the growing stages were +- 10 days earlier than last year and as the harvest time approached the temperatures cooled down and we harvested more or less the same time as last year.
      For the first time with the help of Dr Roediger we measured the phenolic ripeness with the Glorie Methart method. This enabled us to establish the exact harvest time even more precisely.

      Disease and pest control was quite easy. For the first time ducks were used with great success and noise to control the snails.  After the heavy rains we had in October the downy mildew pressures were quite high. But due to the looser bunches we managed to overcome this problem without any losses. Apart from this we did not experience any other problems.

      We had a cool harvest period. Our harvesting was mostly done before 11am in the morning ensuring high quality grapes reaching the cellar at low temperatures. Our yield was 15% higher than last year with an average of 8.5 tons per hectare over all the five varietals.
      Three days after harvest we were blessed with some heavy rains and we are looking forward to a cold and wet winter which will ensure a nice, long rest for the vineyards. 
EXPANDING at DE TOREN PRIVATE CELLAR

2005 also saw an increase in our fermenting and storage space in the cellar. With our new plantings of Cabernet Sauvignon  coming into full production we needed additional fermenting and storage tanks. We installed 4 new 5000 liter

fermenters and a 3 x 3300 liter combi storage tank as well as 1 x 10 000 liter storage tank.

The Good news is that by 2007 there should be a little more Fusion V to go around.
Harvest Report 
by Albie Koch

One can almost say: “Finally it is over!”

The 2005 harvest stretched to such an extent that at one time I felt that we are going to press the Cabernets during Christmas this year. The first 2 tons of Petit Verdot was harvested on            11 February and we finished with the last block of Cabernet Sauvignon on Thursday, 7 April.

This year I have seen the most mind blowing analysis. The one day the analysis was perfect and 3 days later a totally different picture. This was due to the drought and the fact that we had two days of excessive heat in two consecutive weeks.

Management of ones resources like supplementary irrigation, aerial imaging, understanding your blocks and a gut feel was put to the ultimate test.

In this vintage we have wines so

intense in colour, that one can fill a pen and write with it. Colours are magnificent. Even the Cabernet Franc's colour looks like a Cabernet Sauvignon.

Flavour profiles are just as great and this was the second year that our Petit Verdot had the aroma of bananas while it was fermenting and it is still noticeable in the wine now.

Malbec, well what a champion - consistent as we know her, even though she gave us a light crop - but the quality is there.

Merlot and Cabernet Sauvignon were the ones that needed the extra love and attention but in the end they turned out to be stunning.

Taking everything into consideration, -  not the easiest harvest, but definitely a very good one!

Nederburg Auction

We took part for the second time in the Nederburg Auction. This year we decided to put our De Toren Fusion V 2000 Directors Reserve up for Auction. Many of you might not have heard of the Directors Reserve. Only 300 cases were made and this wine was never sold in South Africa. - A real collector's item. Twenty wooden cases of 6 were put on auction.

We achieved a whopping average price of      R 693.50 per bottle incl VAT. This translates into US$ 114.00 per bottle; € 86.00 or  £ 62.00 per bottle. 

If you did manage to get your hands on this wine we think you made a handsome investment!

New Face in Our Office

Many of you have met or dealt with Babre over the years. Sadly she moved on to greener fields, but we are happy to announce that Sarna Nesenberend joined us on 18 April. Sarna comes to us with extensive experience from the dairy

industry, and luckily has already been weaned onto red wine! We are confident that Sarna will ably take over the reins, and  continue the smooth running of our office and reception.

Collectors Item

Our recent Diversity promotion has proved to be a great success.    It entailed a limited offering of 100 cartons of each of our Diversity Alpha, Beta and Delta to our regular South African clients.    Part of the offering was a one in hundred chance to win a 

6 liter De Toren Fusion V 2000 Directors Reserve as the prize. One of our staunch supporters won the lucky prize. Here Mr Richard Stovin Bradford receives this rare collector's item from Emil den Dulk jr from our sister company De Toren Spirits

New Face in Marketing

Our youngest son Dale recently completed his Honours degree - B Comm. Enterprise Management (Cum Laude). With a passion for the industry combined with his business aptitude he has  slotted into the position of Marketing Manager at De Toren. You will find Dale energetic and full of creative ideas which he will carry through to the broader market through

personal staff training in our various distribution outlets, as well as spending valuable time with our customers. He will also be travelling to Europe shortly to meet our international distributors .

Keep your eyes and ears open as you will hearing a lot from him in the future.

http://www.de-toren.cominfo@de-toren.com