VINUM VINEYARDS
Composed of selected sites in the Stellenbosch region –from prime parcels on the Helderberg Mountain and in Devon Valley. These sites offer excellent mineral soils, South, South-eastern & South-western exposures and healthy, mature vines, all of which combine cozily with maritime cool ocean breezes to bestow on these vineyards a spectacular and ideal environment. Each of the vineyards is highly specialised, and each small enough to afford Vinum great focus. The yields range between 40 and 48 hl / hectare, depending on the specific vines and the vintage. We now make between 3 and 7,000 cases of each wine per annum, depending on vintage conditions (having kicked-off in 1999 with 1 000 cases all-in). The 2008 vintage also saw a number of great new vineyard blocks come on-stream and we plan to plant more Chenin Blanc on the Helderberg Mountain in 2008 / 2009.
WINEMAKING
Terrence filling barrels with 2009 Vinum Cabernet-Sauvignon
Preparing Vinum Cab barrels
Fermenting the Chenin
Once you've got good grapes, the winemaker should get in the way as little as possible. The truth is that quality starts and finishes in the vineyard. Winemaking is simply about retaining the potential of the fruit you have grown. Edouard labeye heads-up Vinum’s non-interventionist wine-making team, along with Allison Adams and Tubby May. Edouard also personally overseas all viticultural decisions, coordinating our own viticulturists and our growers. We make our wines in our great little winery on the Helderberg Mountain in Stellenbosch. The whole process is generously fueled and inspired by copious and thorough sampling of the previous year’s wines, whilst the rest of the crew generally stands around, gets in the way and invites other like-minded people over to help sample last year's wines, get in the way etc…
Organisationally, the talented and faithful team leader Heather Whitman whips the team into gear on a regular basis, whilst juggling all the paperwork and managing the operational-side of their creative habit.
THE RANGE
Cabernet traditionally always made South Africa’s most famous reds. That’s evolving now that Shiraz has found a new home in some great spots around the Cape. In Stellenbosch, however, Cab is still King. Having successfully developed vineyards on some of the choicest sites in Stellenbosch, we thought that it would be a worthy novelty to create an excellent Cabernet-Sauvignon at a particularly reasonable price. Quite the opposite to the prevailing -sometimes opportunistic- hiking of pricing in Stellenbosch of recent years, not least with all the rich and famous having snapped-up properties and churning-out so-called “Icon” (read “ego”) wines. The objective being to produce, consistently, one of the finest Cabs in the Appellation, but to sell it at a price beneath its potential “real” value. Why bother ? To create great demand on the one hand, whilst guaranteeing that the wine will sell-out every year on the other –2 tremendous assets for any producer in today’s market place. The gamble has paid-off nicely and our Vinum Cab continues to go from strength to strength with each vintage as we develop our quality and our following. It doesn’t hurt that we receive consistently good Press, both at home and abroad, but the most important thing is the growing number of loyal customers who buy from us each and every year.
Sunset shot showing the vineyards of Vinum Cabernet Sauvignon, Radford Dale Merlot and Shiraz.
We don’t like to dilute our focus by trying to be all things to all people. We stick to what we enjoy and to what we do well. Chenin Blanc, for so many years, has been the ugly duckling of the Cape wine industry. A handful of like-minded producers, towards the end of the 1990’s, started putting tremendous effort into specialising in high quality Chenin Blanc, and especially on the Ocean-facing vineyards of Stellenbosch. We decided that we wanted our Vinum range to be composed of a value for money Cabernet (King of reds) and a premium Chenin (ugly duckling of whites), the latter almost entirely from old vines. A totally contradictory and unorthodox approach, but a dynamic that we believe in and enjoy. Chenin remains totally under-rated across the planet, which we think is not only a travesty but a wonderful opportunity. Not least when we see the great fruit quality we achieve every year on the Helderberg Mountain in Stellenbosch. Chenin in our opinion is the greatest white grape asset we possess in the Cape –sooner or later this will become apparent to all, while in the meantime we’re enjoying getting ahead !