GREAT FIVE RESERVE MERLOT 2019

Fresh red berry fruit and cherry flavours interwoven with slight herbal freshness. Full,fresh to start with plum , cherry and strawberry fruits, well balanced acidity ensures great offering with elegant tannin structure.

STELLENVIEW

Different climate zones are used to ensure a wide selection of quality grapes. Firstly, the south-easterly slopes on the Tygerberg Hills, Durbanville and the south-westerly slopes of Devon Valley, Stellenbosch are both characterized with high clay content soils resulting in excellent water retention. The cool breeze from the cold Atlantic Ocean also ensures healthy grapes. The northern facing slope on the Helderberg basin in the Somerset West region ensures excellent sun exposure and fertile soil to enable stabile growing conditions.

In the cool early morning the grapes are hand harvested. Grapes from specific sites are fermented in separate stainless steel tanks or in open top fermenters. Each tank goes through a cold soaking process for 2-3 days prior to inoculation with selected yeast strains. During the fermentation period, which is 14 days, pump overs or punch downs are done 3-6 times daily for colour extraction. This processes the colour of the wine and also the taste of the wine as tannins are extracted from the grape mass and by airated pump overs the tannins get polymerized and form the first part of excellent wine.

The wine is then allocated to undergo malolactic fermentation in tanks and after placed into barrels, which are predominantly from French oak, to age for 12 - 24 months.