The wine, De Grendel Rubaiyat, is a blend of primarily Cabernet Sauvignon with Malbec, Merlot and Cabernet Franc. The Malbec, Merlot and Cabernet Franc are all from De Grendel’s own 100-odd hectares of younger vineyards established about a decade ago on the farm’s west-facing slopes overlooking Table Mountain and the Atlantic Ocean.
The Cabernet comes from a four-hectare vineyard in Firgrove just six kilometres from False Bay among the foothills of the Helderberg mountain in Stellenbosch. ‘When Sir David first mentioned his hope of producing a serious Bordeaux red blend, I said such quality had to be a calling from the vineyard,’ recalls De Grendel cellarmaster Charles Hopkins. ‘Only fully mature vines that are well settled, have achieved a natural balance and produce a naturally low yield without any cropping, would give us the style and standard of quality we were looking for.’
De Grendel’s strong suit being primarily merlot and sauvignon blanc, Hopkins embarked upon a search for the right vineyard to anchor De Grendel’s Bordeaux wine. He found it on a Firgrove hillside in an area renowned for producing some of the Cape’s finest red grapes. The healthy 33-year-old bush vines are rooted in deep, broken laterite soils beneath a light top soil and produce a yield of less than four tons of fruit per hectare with minimal viticultural intervention. An average berry weight of less than a gram results in remarkably high flavour concentration. Each variety is vinified separately.
A portion of each is made in open fermenters with regular, firm punch-downs with a pneumatic system for high extraction of phenolics (including colour, tannin and flavour compounds). The other portion is allowed to macerate on the skins in a closed tank with gentle pump-overs for soft tannins. Both portions are then pressed together in a basket press, placed in small new French oak barrels for malolactic fermentation (to soften natural acidity), racked several times and then left for another six months in barrel. The components are then tasted and tested in various combinations by cellarmaster Charles Hopkins, winemaker Elzette du Preez and associates before the final blend is chosen to rest in small, new French oak barrels for a further 12 or more months. The result, as evident in the maiden 2006, is a wine that is deeply coloured, with a rare freshness and purity of fruit on the nose and palate.
Deep aromas and flavours of black berry fruit and cassis dominate, with subtle whiffs of chocolate, a hint of mintiness and a delicate spiciness giving complexity. The wine is firmly structured with fine, dry tannins for longevity that are nevertheless soft enough for youthful appeal. Despite extended barrel maturation in new oak, phenolic ripeness of grapes from mature vines existing in natural balance is key to markedly subtle wood effect on the wine, says Hopkins, famously averse to the injudicious use of new oak. He is a veteran of nearly 20 vintages and, like Sir David, a devotee of red Bordeaux. The name Rubaiyat is the Persian word for a quatrain: a stanza of verse comprising four lines (reflecting the four varietal components of the blend).
Inspiration came from the Graaff family’s treasured copy of a 19th-century English translation of a lyrical poem by an 11th-century Persian astronomer and mathematician ruminating on life’s great questions. Edward FitzGerald’s 1859 work The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam covered just a fraction of the more than 750 stanzas the original poem was thought to have comprised. But it was enough to capture the imagination of the Western world, its titillating and evocative sentiments finding resonance, first with sophisticated Victorian England’s taste for the bizarre and then with the 1920s intellectual flapper generation’s escapism into a sensual lifestyle between the two World Wars. Which is when Sir David Graaff’s grandfather, owner since 1891 of the early 18th-century farm De Grendel, acquired his copy.
The maiden 2006 vintage of De Grendel Rubaiyat features a specially selected quatrain from The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam in delicate script on the front label. ‘And lately, by the Tavern Door agape, Came shining through the Dusk an Angel Shape Bearing a Vessel on his Shoulder; and He bid me taste of it; and ‘twas the Grape!’ Subsequent vintages will each bear another quatrain. The 2007 has already been bottled and will be released next year in commemoration of Sir David Graaff’s 70th birthday. The 2008 and 2009 are both still in barrel and will be bottled ‘only when ready,’ insists the cellarmaster. The wine is made in very small quantities, amounting to only some 350 cases of 12 bottles. De Grendel Rubaiyat 2006 is available from the winery’s tasting room and at selected specialist wine shops countrywide at the recommended retail price of R240 a bottle.
Issued for: De Grendel by Errieda du Toit PR
Contact Information: Errieda du Toit Tel: 021 913 2248 E-mail: errieda@edtpr.co.za