Let's talk little, let's talk wine
The Chardonnay Clay Shales cuvée is a wine made from a single plot located on the ridge of Hemel-en-Aarde, benefiting from an ideal position in the shadow of a mountain, at high altitude and close to the ocean . This wine is named after the Bokkeveld clay and shale soils on which the vines grow. The harvest is manual and fermentation takes place using native yeasts, without the use of chemical inputs apart from a small quantity of sulfur. Aging on lees lasts 10 months in old barrels and tuns. This wine reveals notes of lemon thyme , toasted oats , white peach , apricot , quince , fresh butter and oyster shells . The palate is round and generous, balanced by mineral tension and a fine acidity, giving it freshness and elegance. A sublime Chardonnay which is certainly one of the finest examples from the Cape.
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The little history of the country
South Africa
The first vines were planted in South Africa by Dutch settlers in the 1650s, although wine production did not really begin to take off until the arrival of French Protestants, in the 1680s, with their skills and their knowledge of viticulture. Stellenbosch is also a historic wine region, with the first vineyards being planted there in the 1690s. Today South Africa is one of the most important wine producing countries in the southern hemisphere. With over 300 years of winemaking history, it is often described as a bridge between the Old and New Worlds. The majority of wines are produced using New World winemaking techniques, but they often have more in common stylistically with their Old World counterparts. Since the end of apartheid, South African wine has received international attention and acclaim for its wide variety of styles. South Africa's wine industry is spread across the lush and rugged landscape of the Western Cape. Here, the abundance of mountains, valleys and plateaus allows winemakers to produce a wide variety of styles. Vineyards can also be found in the Orange River region of the Northern Cape, where the flat, arid landscape is dominated by the Kalahari Desert. Most of South Africa's wine regions have a Mediterranean climate, strongly influenced by the meeting of the Atlantic and Indian Oceans. The country's signature grape variety is Pinotage, an indigenous cross of Pinot Noir and Cinsaut that is rarely found in quantity in other wine-producing countries. Shiraz (Syrah) is also widely planted, as are Cabernet Sauvignon and Merlot (often combined in a Bordeaux blend). South African Chardonnay, Chenin and Sauvignon Blanc have become popular internationally in recent years.