Background
Du Toitskloof Wine Cellar (DTK) was established by six wine farmers as a cooperative winery in 1962. Today it has 22 members whose vineyards all lie within a 10 km radius of the cellar. It is located near the town of Rawsonville in the Breede River Valley, at the entrance to the Du Toitskloof Mountain Pass. The stony soils of the area are ideally suited to grape growing. DTK’s award-winning wines are known for their excellent quality at affordable prices, and during the last five years it has been rated the South African cellar offering the best value by WINE magazine, three times. The cellar produces some 10 million litres of wine a year from 13 500 tons of grapes, of which 60% is white and 40%, red. Its major white cultivar is Sauvignon blanc, followed by Chardonnay, Chenin blanc and Semillon. The main red cultivars are Cabernet Sauvignon, Shiraz, Merlot and Pinotage.

In the vineyards
All the grapes for this blend came from within 5 km of the Du Toitskloof cellar. The vines, grafted on to Richter 99 and 110 rootstock and grown in sandy clayey soils. Based on soil moisture levels as measured by neutron hydrometers in the vineyards, controlled irrigation is applied, thereby also ensuring small berries with an excellent skin to fruit ratio providing an intense colour and flavour spectrum. Grapes selected from both trellised and bush vine vineyards and were picked when they reached optimum physiological ripeness

In the cellar
The Shiraz is made form a single vineyard block of bush vines that produces wonderful smokey, spicy and mint flavours. The grapes were harvested at 24° Balling. One half was sorted by hand, whereafter the bunches were pressed whole and the juice pumped over every two hours and cold-soaked; the other half was pressed in rotor tanks that were rotated every four hours. The wine was allowed to ferment dry and to undergo malolactic fermentation. It was then matured for nine months in stainless steel tanks with French oak staves while some was matured in second-fill oak vats. Blending was done just before bottling.