2021 Craven Cinsaut Stellenbosch. South Africa

Product description

Mick & Jeanine are thankful to continue with this vineyard they have worked with since 2017 called ‘Rustenhof.’ This great farm in the Faure area has an abundance of lovely Cinsaut, amongst many other varieties and Pieter Bredell, with Jeanine’s assistance and direction, farms it with great care. The block the Cravens use is a dryland, bush-vine block, only three miles from the ocean and essentially planted on granitic sand, suiting their winemaking style nicely.

Mick calls the 2021 a “bright, fresh, and vibrant red from a grape that truly belongs in Stellenbosch.” Keeping in line with previous releases and straying from the other reds the Cravens make, the Cinsaut grapes are destemmed before fermentation due to the natural low acidity and higher pH compared to other red varieties.  It is bottled slightly earlier than their other red wines in an effort to express the fresher, brighter characters of Cinsaut, so after five months the wine was bottled with a light fining, sheet filtration, and dosage of 40 ppm dosage of sulfur.