Chamonix Greywacke Pinotage, Franschhoek

Chamonix Greywacke Pinotage is 100% Pinotage made from grapes harvested from a 2.5 hectare plot of vines planted at an altitude of 350 metres of altitude on Greywacke soils. Greywacke soil is a type of sandstone characterised by its hardness, dark colour, and poorly sorted angular grains of quartz, feldspar, and small rock fragments or lithic fragments set in a compact, clay-fine matrix.

Cape Chamonix wine farm is situated on the eastern mountain slopes of the fertile Franschhoek Valley to the north of Cape Town and can trace its beginnings back to 1688 when it was part of the first farm granted to Huguenots. The estate was bought by its current owners in 1990 and there have been many improvements made in the vineyards and winery since.

Chamonix Greywacke Pinotage vines have an average age of 15 years old and are trained in the traditional Cordon system. To make Chamonix Greywacke Pinotage the healthiest bunches of grapes are hand-picked from mid to end of February and the others are left to air dry on the the vine and are then picked at the end of March. Whole bunches of the early harvested grapes are sorted and fermented in stainless steel with carbonic maceration. Then the later harvested, partly dried, grapes are added which starts a secondary fermentation. Fermentation takes place at 18-20° C for 15 days on the skins. Wine buffs might recognise this as the Ripasso method of wine production commonly used in the Veneto region of Italy. After malolactic fermentation, the wine was aged for 18 months in 228L French oak barrels, 30% of which are new.