Dear Vondelingers
Happy New Year from all of us here at Vondeling. I hope you all had a cracking festive season and are refreshed and full of positive vibes for the year ahead. Of course, we have our challenges with Eskom, leading to big problems with irrigation and operating the winery for the upcoming harvest. We start picking Chardonnay and Sauvignon Blanc tomorrow. Its been a difficult growing season with fluctuating temperatures, low rainfall, and early leaf drop in autumn, which culminated in low energy reserves in the vines. Walking through the vineyards this weekend, it looked to me that the crop is generally a bit light, especially the reds, but hopefully, the quality will be good. The proof will be in the pudding. Anyway, we are all tremendously excited and ready to go.
The grapes for our Lifestyle range of wines, we mostly now pick with a machine seen above. But for all our Barrel Selection, Flagship, and Limited release ranges we still pick by hand. Approximately 60% of all wine grapes in South Africa are now machine harvested. We carried out our first berry sampling last week Wednesday to see the ripeness of various blocks, so we can anticipate when we will pick various blocks. This will be repeated all through harvest.
As well as starting picking, we have a lot of bottling to do in the next couple of weeks. Wines have come out of barrel, have been blended, and are now ready for bottling, making way for the next vintage. Below are barrels and cement eggs which have just been emptied!
Lastly, please watch out for updates from my daughter, Shura, on the new farm at Vrymansfontein, where Max Ward is overseeing the development of a brand new restaurant and wine tasting venue, on the same road as Fairview, Spice Route and Landskroon. They hope to open next November and you will be able to follow the progress.
