One vineyard, two terroirs

One vineyard, two terroirs

‘When we originally planted the vineyard, we planted it for a single wine,’ says Mike. The grape varieties are mainly those classically associated with Bordeaux and South African blends – Cabernets Sauvignon and Franc, Merlot, Malbec – and the idea was to bring them together as a single expression – The Vilafonté – representing one ultra-specific terroir.

But then came an unexpected twist. ‘In 2001 and 2002 as we started examining the wines we realised quite quickly that actually, in those early days there were these two expressions coming out of the vineyard,’ Mike says. One of them was markedly softer, rounder, juicier – dominated as you would expect by Merlot and Malbec. The other was more structured and tense and concentrated – characterised in the Cabernets.

Not wanting to fight against their terroir and its expression, Mike and his team shelved the idea of a single wine, and instead allowed the vineyard its two voices, in the forms of Series M and Series C.