TWO wines from Boplaas Family Vineyards in Calitzdorp were named area winners at the latest edition of the Novare SA Terroir Awards. The show, now in its 16th year, honour wines that best portray South Africa’s different wine growing regions.
The Boplaas wines singled out were the 2020 Bobbejaanberg Sauvignon Blanc Family Reserve, made from vines at the very edge of the Cape’s traditional winelands; and the 2015 Block 1932 Hanepoot, whose old riverside vineyard has resolutely withstood droughts and floods over multiple decades.
The 2020 Boplaas Bobbejaanberg Sauvignon Blanc Family Reserve hails from the Outeniqua Mountains and is produced from a single vineyard.
This secluded block thrives in soils of decomposed sandstone, at an elevation over 650m above sea level.
Its name refers its location among the peaks as well as a band of marauding baboons that often raid the vineyards for its tasty fruit.
The wine’s fruit is hand harvested at optimal ripeness in the cool morning hours, and hastily trucked to the winery in Calitzdorp. It is crushed and allowed a period of skin contact prior to a gentle pressing, with only the free-run juice cold-fermented in stainless steel tanks. The liquid then undergoes a period of lees contact prior to bottling, with very light filtration.
The result is a wine that exudes aromas of lime leaf, subtle white peach, lemon grass, sugar snap pea, capsicum, and green asparagus!
Fellow terroir award-winner, the 2015 Boplaas Block 1932 Hanepoot, is made from a low-yielding single vineyard of Hanepoot grapes along the banks of the Gamka River.
Two area winners for Boplaas
A Boplaas wine singled out was the 2020 Bobbejaanberg Sauvignon Blanc Fa-mily Reserve.
Photo supplied