Warwick Estate, Trilogy 2018

Description

GRAPE VARIETALS

55% Cabernet Franc, 42% Cabernet Sauvignon and 3% Merlot

WINEMAKER’S TASTING NOTES

Deep garnet in colour, with a ruby red rim.

Aromas of cassis, lavender, cedarwood, cigar box on the first approach. As the wine breaths it shows more crème de cassis and black berries.

The palate is rich and concentrated with intensity and structure. Black berries and cassis follow form the initial aromas though on to a complex aroma of sweet spices and a lovely savoury element.

The tannins are firm, but well structured and will allow the wine to age gracefully over the next 5 – 10 years. Decant for a few hours if you want this wine to show its true colours.

WINEMAKING

Each component was harvested separately, de-stemmed and sorted into tank. The wines spent between 20 and 40 days on the skins, with three or four pump overs per day and then pressed to undergo malolactic fermentation in barrel and tank.

After completion, the wine was racked to French oak barrels (60% new oak was used) for a period of 24 months before a strict selection process, where only the best barrels from the best blocks are selected.

Wines are blended and allowed to clarify naturally before bottling in October 2019.

WARWICK’S HISTORY

It was only in 1964 that the Ratcliffe Family arrived on the scene, and it took winemaker Norma Ratcliffe, alongside her husband Stan, twenty years before they released their first wine. Warwick’s La Femme Bleu Cabernet Sauvignon was released in 1984, after which the estate went on to bottle the first ever ‘Cape Blend’ in the world, won multiple international wine awards, appeared on some of the planet’s most prestigious wine lists, and even became a wine of choice for James Bond in one of his many adventures.

In many senses, the Warwick Estate brand that you know today was developed the same way one might nurture a grape vine; through decade upon decade of careful planning, pruning, and persistence. In 2018, setting our sights on the future, we acquired the neighbouring estate of Uitkyk. The acquisition of this new land under the leadership of an internationally experienced team is an exciting chapter to have added to Warwick’s history.

But the word ‘history’ can sometimes be limiting, too. Because ‘history’ appears to give all the credit to the people and ignores what came earlier. Long before the fruit farm, and long before the Ratcliffe family, this little piece of the planet held greatness in its very soil. And more than just being part of our ‘history’, this land is our heritage.

Additional information

Roast Lamb and Beef.