Christan Eedes on Vilafonte - the 2009's

Vilafonté is a joint venture between Mike Ratcliffe of Warwick in Stellenbosch and American husband and wife Phil Freese and Zelma Long, Phil an accomplished viticulturist and Zelma equally skilled as a winemaker. The property is in the Simonsberg-Paarl ward and there are two wines under the Vilafonté label, Series C and Series M. The 2009 vintage was recently released. Scores and tasting notes below: Series C 2009: 18/20 Price: R450 54% Cabernet Sauvignon, 27% Merlot, 11% Cabernet Franc, 8% Malbec. Very expressive on the nose with notes of cassis, violets and attractive oak. The palate displays super-concentrated fruit, fresh acidity and fine tannins. Full bodied but perfectly proportioned. Plenty of weight and power but the wine is entirely in balance and retains great drinkability. Series M 2009: 17/20 Price: R350 46% Malbec, 32% Merlot, 21% Cabernet Sauvignon, 1% Cabernet Franc. Ripe dark fruit and vanilla on the nose. The palate is rich but not unduly weighty. Snappy almost tangy acidity, tannins smooth but not slippery. A voluptuous wine, the high proportion of Malbec lending a slight wildness. General observation: Prior to the 2009 vintage, the Vilafonté wines have always been serious but rather deliberate and imposing. What is striking about the new releases is that for all their intensity, they still have refreshment value.

some exceptional new Vilafonte images for our new website - coming soon

Lovely article about Vilafonte and Zelma Long by Andrew Jefford in Decanter magazine - today.

Jefford on Monday: Walking and talking with Zelma

Fifty-five vintages bring a sense of perspective. That’s how many Californian winemaker Zelma Long has now overseen, principally in California, but latterly in South Africa, too, at the Vilafonté estate she founded in 1997 with her husband, viticulturalist Phil Freese.

Decanter's Andrew Jefford

In addition to her work in California, Washington and Paarl, consultations take her to Israel and France -- which was where I caught up with her recently, on a bright spring day in the Rhône valley. We were walking the vineyards of Xavier and Nicole Rolet’s high-sited Chêne Bleu estate, at the intersection of Gigondas and Mont Ventoux.

“I grew up in eastern Oregon,” remembers Zelma, “where nobody drank wine. But I ended up down in the Bay area, and my parents-in-law bought land in the Napa valley and planted it, back in the 1960s. I had a science background, but I wasn’t excited about what I was doing, which was dietetics -- it would be much more exciting nowadays. So I thought I’d go back to school and learn about winemaking. And that was it; that was the start. Then I got recruited for a harvest at Robert Mondavi by Mike Grgich. Two years later he left, and I took over his job as chief enologist. I was there for about ten years. Bob Mondavi really was an incredible man -- optimistic, driven, with clear vision; he was an early thinker about wine culture. And wonderfully good humoured, too; he was real fun to work with. We were always doing something different. If ever there was a wine university, that was it.” Mondavi was followed by Simi, which Zelma eventually left in 1999 in order to concentrate on Vilafonté.She identifies three stages in California’s development. “The first, in the 1970s, was our understanding of winemaking. In the 1980s, we began to analyze the vineyard -- soils, climate, plant materials, planting systems.  Then in the ‘90s, we began to put the two together, which I think is the most important. The big challenge now is to work out what’s going on, the nature of each harvest, what the tannin profile is like... Understanding the season; formulating a response. Every vintage is different. That’s what I find wonderful and fascinating about winemaking: it’s a way of telling the story of the vineyard.”What made Zelma and her husband plant in South Africa? “Winemaking technology and wine science travels quickly. But the thing that doesn’t travel quickly is wine growing. You can’t just go to another country for harvest and really understand what’s happened over the season. You need to spend season after season there.” Vilafonté, she says, is “our heart and soul. We wanted to do something where we could start from the beginning and use our expertise and experience and invest it in a small project. We found the land; we planted the vineyards. We only produce two wines. It’s a very focused effort to produce something of high quality.”I’d never tasted these wines until a week or two ago, and I’m impressed. One of them is called ‘Series M’: a Malbec-Merlot blend with some Cabernet Sauvignon stiffening and a shot of Cabernet Franc. The 2009 smells of damson and truffles, and has impressive fruit architecture on the palate: lithe, athletic, concentrated and resonant. The ‘Series C’, meanwhile, is principally Cabernet balanced by smaller percentages of the other varieties. It smells fatter, with more of the ‘fynbos’ in it; has less penetrating fruit but better width and richness, and finishes with a rolling wave of bramble, forest brush and warm clay minerals. They are two of the finest South African wines I’ve ever tasted: authoritative, refined, satisfying. Quantities, alas, are small: 31 barrels of the M and 23 of the C.“I think what South Africa has to offer,” continues Zelma, “are world-class wines of incredible diversity. The Cape is essentially a marine climate; the soils are incredibly old. South Africa to me doesn’t have the massive fruit expression that we see in California, nor is it quite as restrained naturally as we see in France. If you can generalise, I’d say that the wines are very fresh, the tannins are softer (because the climate is a little softer), and the wines have more acid structure and less tannin structure than you get in California. With our own vineyards, we never add acid. People now realise that if you grow the grapes properly, they retain their natural acid.” 

Vilafonte winemaking partner - Zelma Long

Her work in Israel has been with the Golan Heights winery, which she describes as “incredibly impressive: the highest quality level I’ve ever seen in a winery of its size and diversity. They brought me in because they wanted to improve the vineyards, and wanted to help the growers understand what was needed in order to do that, and wanted the technical staff in the winery to understand too. They just take information and run with it. I very much like working there.”France is different. “When I first came here many years ago with Robert Mondavi and talked with the vignerons, my sense was that they saw themselves as stewards of their land; they were just part of its long history. I’ve always thought that was very beautiful. I don’t know whether it’s going to continue, because of the nature of our globalizing world, but that history, that culture, than sensitivity to the land makes France a different growing environment, and in a way, a role model. What tends to happen in the New World is that someone comes in with some resources -- and they build a winery. Because you can build a winery; you can hire a great architect and build a beautiful winery. But from my perspective, the investment would be better put into the vineyards first, because that’s what you need to make great wine. That’s what the Rolets have done here at Chêne Bleu; they spent 15 years reclaiming the vineyards before they built a winery and began making wine.”The Rolet family (Xavier’s sister Bénédicte Gallucci looks after the vineyards, and his brother-in-law Jean-Louis Gallucci is winemaker) are not short of advice: Claude and Lydia Bourguignon were there at the same time as Zelma, busily digging pits in the vines, as was another Californian winemaker, Doug Margerum of the Margerum Wine Company. The Rolets, too, make two red wines: the Syrah-Grenache-Viognier Héloïse and the Grenache-dominated Abelard, both released as Vins de Pays rather than appellation wines (the vineyards straddle four AOCs). They are earlier in their evolutionary trajectory than Vilafonté -- I’d like to see less oak than in the initial releases -- but once you’ve ducked behind that sweet sheen they share some of the close-grained purity, innate balance and unshowy finesse of Zelma’s Simonsberg wine. Might that be her doing? I wouldn’t presume to guess, but if 55 vintages of winemaking are going to teach you to pursue anything, purity and finesse have to be somewhere near the top of the list.

Post-harvest 2012 Vilafonte Wine Club newsletter

It has been a wonderful time in the Vilafonté winery and vineyards and we now enter into a post-harvest calm period. We are happy to report that the 2012 vintage has been perhaps the highlight of the past decade and we have achieved a continuation of our ever-improving quality. This is quite impressive after a string of four vintages since 2009 that have potential for greatness. We keep raising our own standards and the results are very satisfying. The 2012 harvest can be characterised by a couple of key quality indicators.

The first indicator, berry size, indicated that we had larger berries than our statistical average. This has resulted in lush, pretty wines that will have lower tannin levels than many of our previous vintages. The 2012 vintage is ‘showy’ and produced impressive wines that will please many critics, but will perhaps not have the longevity of the spectacular 2009 vintage. Many members have stocked up on the 2009 specifically because of its above average ageing potential. The larger berry size contributed to an increased yield of high quality juice, despite the fact that we barely produced 3 tons per hectare – an incredibly low yield by any industry standards.

A second characteristic of the 2012 harvest was a much later harvest date than usual. This is a consequence of unusually cool ripening conditions that allowed the vines to reach phenological ripeness at a slow measured pace. These ripening conditions were absolutely ideal, despite an unseasonal heat wave in early January, which caused many wineries such damage. We would be delighted if we could get these conditions every year. In 2012 we finally commenced harvest on Valentines Day February 14^th, well ahead of the rest of the industry, as is our norm, but unusually 2 weeks behind our average harvest commencement date.

In general, we can report that we have had excellent results and we feel that the vintage will produce some ‘show-stoppers’. The 2012 vintage will now remain in barrel for another 2 years allowing our wines to continue their development into the bottle and for release in about 2014.

our soil-type is called 'vilafontes'

Included in this newsletter is a photograph, which epitomises what Vilafonté is all about. This simple image, taken during harvest 2012, is an image of Vineyard Manager Edward Pietersen with a handful of our precious vilafontes soil – the very essence of what our wines are all about. The ‘heart’ connection with our Valentines Day harvest date is entirely coincidental.

Our wine club continues its measured growth and we have many new developments in the pipeline including newly upgraded wine packaging, a winter mixed case vertical offer and a brand new club website. We have planned a number of discrete member-only events across the country, which we will be communicating separately. Thank you to so many of you for having recommended friends and colleagues for membership. While we cannot accept all applications, we will always strive to accommodate referrals.

Vilafonté Wine Club Manager, Sophia Hawkins is committed to engaging with our members exclusively. Her details remain Sophia@vilafonte.com and her direct-dial phone is 021-8864083. Remember, no request is too much trouble.

While the Vilafonté winery is not open to the general public, I would like to personally ensure you that as a wine club member, we will always welcome you with open arms. Let us know when you are in Stellenbosch.

Thank you for your support and your engagement.

Mike Ratcliffe

Managing Partner 

new look Vilafonte advert going into Wine Style magazine this month

Debonair Vilafonte winemaker Martin Smith in a lighter moment

Series M 2009 at The One and Only, Cape Town

Series M 2009 at the Top 100 SA Wine, Consumer tasting, held at The One and Only, Cape Town

Harvest is wrapping up in South Africa

While winemakers inevitably have a multitude of different opinions on the outcome of a harvest, there are some threads that come through that when woven together correctly, can start creating a clear picture. The Vilafonte Vineyards winemaking team wrapped up harvest this week while the Warwick Wine Estate team have another couple of days to go. In general, harvest 2012 in South Africa can, in my opinion, be considered a huge success. But why? What are the defining characteristics?

The one overwhelming common theme is that an unseasonal heat-wave descended on the Winelands in early January - a critical period for phenological ripeness. With the benefit of advanced weather forecasting being relatively common these days, the heat wave was identified about a week in advance and any and all reasonable responses to the impending temperatures were taken by those that were paying attention. Unfortunately there are very few tools to deal with excessive heat and the most powerful tool is irrigation. For those that have either decided not to invest in irrigation or who have a philosophical preference to dry-grown viticulture - 2012 will probably at least get them thinking that the judicious application of supplemental irrigation is more of a necessity than a nice-to-have. Dry-grown vineyards in the Cape lost significant tonnage and the remaining grapes would have suffered from heat stress symptoms like high pH and dropping acidity. Berry shrivel would also be an unforeseen symptom that can lead to elevated alcohol. All of these outcomes are not good.

On the other hand, this heat-wave was the only speed-bump in 2012 and for those that were able  to manage it - there was no measurable negative outcome. Since mid January, the Cape has been characterized by refreshing lower than average temperatures which have provided what could best be described as an idyllic environment for the steady accumulation of sugar and the pursuit of phenological ripeness. Interestingly, in many of our vineyards we observed advanced ripeness at lower sugars which again provides an indication that 2012 could be considered a benchmark year. On observation of the grapes at harvest, we noticed a slightly larger berry size, but excellent levels of all the goodies that lead to colour extraction, flavor compounds as well as nicely ripened tannins which create mouth-feel and texture in the wines. Without trying to 'talk it up' too much, possibly the biggest indicator of quality comes from the significantly reduced rate of berry variability which leads to concentration in the wines and is one of our most important indicators of quality - this is not a subjective measure and at the risk of being technical, we had the lowest berry variability measurement of standard deviation in my career. This basically means that at harvest, a huge proportion of berries were perfectly ripe - simultaneously.

Despite the above, I remain a cynic and I like to see out beautiful wine through fermentation before a truly great vintage can be pronounced but the signs are there at Warwick and at Vilafonte.

Stay tuned.

Mike Ratcliffe

beautiful Cabernet Sauvignon coming into the Vilafonte winery today...

Harvest 2012 starts in South Africa

Harvest action in the Vilafonte vineyard

January in South Africa is a strange time in the wine industry. It is a cross roads between the relaxed business of Christmas holidays and the serious business of verasion and harvest preparation. Winemakers and viticulturists shake the cobwebs out of their ears and get busy understanding what it is that nature is going to be presenting them for harvest. (Of course the more serious Viticulture practitioners would have ignored Christmas and worked throughout the season.) It is often with trepidation that eyes are cast towards the weather report to make sure that the hint of a serious thunderstorm or a late season heatwave which may or may not upend the best prepared plans. Inevitably the best grapes come from the best vineyards and always, the best vineyards are managed by the most precise and most fastidious viticulturists. Only the best can truly make any difference when faced with the onslaught of mother nature.

Tomorrow (February 13th) will be the first day of harvest in the luxurious Vilafonte vineyards www.vilafonte.com and it is actually about 2 weeks later than usual – a frustrating delay for a wine growing team obsessed with detail. The harvest is looking excellent with a greater number of berries in our test panels indicating an average to small berry size, but a potentially larger harvest of high-quality grapes. It will be a 4am start tomorrow morning and I, along with my entire team, are excited and nervous at the same time.

The harvest started at Warwick Wine Estate last Wednesday with the early harvest of some beautiful Sauvignon Blanc that will eventually become the Warwick 'Professor Black''`sauvignon Blanc – our well known standard bearer that is occupying a lot of our attention at the moment. Early indications are good and I was able to taste the first rich, sweet, ripe juice straight from the jaws of our brand new 'uber-fancy' grape press imported just-in-time from France. Delicious. There is so much more to come in the annual dramatic episode that we call harvest – stay tuned. I will do my best to find some time to keep you posted.

Cheers.