De Toren Z Merlot Vineyard days before harvesting First light, cloudy, ideal day for harvesting

2008 HARVEST HEADING TO BE A GREAT ONE!

As I write this we have not started harvesting yet. If the weather holds we expect a great vintage. Walking through the vineyards with Albie our winemaker and Ernest our viticulturist, we tasted the various cultivars and the blocks they are planted in. Tasting the Merlot of our Z vineyards reveals highly complex and concentrated fruits and is close to harvest. The Malbec seems to have taken up a lot of water and is tasting juicy and sweet but will need some time to get more concentrated, so we will harvest this block a little later on.

The Petit Verdot is showing great class and is getting close to a wine you can bottle as a single cultivar.

The cabernets have very small berries this year and still show high acidity. Maybe we will still be harvesting cabernet during mid April. We really had solid bunches forming this year and thinning out lets the vineyard look like a slaughtering field. What one has to do to grow great grapes?

We have had one of the coolest summers we can remember and the planting of our new vineyards with the row directions creating an air conditioning effect in the vineyards bode for great things to come. If we do not have a lot of rain in the next four weeks we can expect not to get rot setting in. Hold thumbs for the weather.

Back to top

The Editor of WINE Magazine SA is ecstatic over our Fusion V 2005.
Fiona Mc Donald, editor of Wine Magazine South Africa recommended the De Toren Fusion V 2005 as
                             “A Smart Investment”
She says “I remember my first visit before Fusion V was released from the farm. It’s gone on to develop a great pedigree and is still as good as the first taste. Floral violet nose with succulent black fruit and oodles of cinnamon and clove spice. Great balance of fruit and wood. TREAT YOURSELF!”

We think so too! And so does Wine Spectator. In fact in the USA Wine Spectator liked the Fusion V 2005 so much that it bestowed our best ever 92 points rating on the wine.

This wine is now nearly sold out and is on strict allocation. The farm has a couple of cases of its own allocation, kept for the readers of this newsletter.

Click here to get your case. Remember only 1 case per person!

Back to top

De Toren Z 2006 about to be released

We know most of you have been without De Toren Z since December. This great wine sold out very quickly and was a phenomenal success, and especially after it’s 91 point rating.

                                       Good News
The 2006 De Toren Z will be released in April.. The select few who have tasted this wine agree it is a step up on 2004 and 2005, so we expect another 90+ point rating. It will be on allocation, so make sure you get your share of this wine.

Secure your pre-release case of De Toren Z 2006. We believe it is our best Vintage yet!

Click here to reserve your case.

Back to top

Another Milestone at De Toren

On February 1 2008 Sonette and I became Grandparents for the first time. Little Mila entered the world @ 3.9kg just after 2 on the Friday afternoon. Father Willem and Talia are the proud parents and are currently living on the farm until their new house in Stellenbosch is completed. Of course Granny & Grand Pa are only too happy to have little Mila close by.

The current harvest is dedicated to her.

Therefore a 9l Fusion V 2008 will be bottled and presented to her to open on her 21st birthday.

                                  .........and more!                                 

The December holiday was the first time Albie, our renowned winemaker, and his wife Magderie took a proper long vacation. Blissful on the beach on the South African West Coast, diving for crayfish everyday - the right medicine to recharge the batteries!

And what was the result?

Not far behind our Grand Child, is Albie and his wife Magderie, they are expecting their first child, some time in September of this year.

So we will be making a bumper lot of large bottles from the very fruitful 2008 vintage.

The image on the left is the previous years presentation of our large format bottles.

The larger Format bottles are available en premieur only.

Click here to pre-order

Back to top

TRAINING IN THE ART OF WINE MAKING

Joost ten Houte de Lange (on the left) is one of Dolf De Lange’s twin sons. Dolf of Wijnkooperij De Lange in Breda, is our importer to the Netherlands and has insured the placement of our wines in 60% of the Michelin rated restaurants in Holland. Joost one day hopes to work in his fathers business and knows he has to start at the bottom! And that at De Toren.

Joost has his eyes on playing an important part in the business and decided not to take the easy route. He has just finished a harvest in the Alsace and is now at De Toren for 3 months, to learn how wine is made in the New World. In the Alsace he concentrated on harvesting and making of white wines and here at De Toren we will teach him how to make red wines.

In the picture you see Joost at pre-dawn harvesting with the rest of the team.

We worked from 6 am to 11 pm on the first day. He told us he slept like a baby that night, and that without a glass of wine!

Back to top

The Secrets of our success Part 15

Crop thinning ensures great grapes. Great Grapes ensure great wine.

Ernest (our viticulturist) leaves no stone unturned to provide Albie with only the best fruit. Notice in this photograph the double irrigation line and the really healthy bunches lying on the ground.

The double irrigation lines (and some times triple) give us the ability to irrigate only certain spots in the vineyard. We have determined through soil moisture monitors that certain sections of the vineyard dry out faster than other sections. To irrigate the whole block therefore gives some vines too much water and others too little. It is so important that the blocks get only the right amount of water that we actually go to the expense on doubling up on our irrigation pipes. Furthermore when there are more than 2 bunches per shoot, the bunches highest on the shoots are removed.

Notice the white spots on the bunches, this is still early morning dew. That shows how early we start.

This picture was taken in the Fusion V Cabernet Sauvignon block that is now 17 years old.

If you have achieved perfection then life is no longer worth living!

Back to top

Putting their money where their mouths are!

At De Toren everyone has to know how our wine is made so that they can talk with experience about our products. This goes for our distributors as well.

So during the first days of harvest we brought our South African distributors into harvest with us. First of all they each had to cut a lug box full of grapes. Only Christine was bleeding after this episode.

After a crisp walk to the cellar they were shown the sorting and de-stemming operation after which they toured the cellar, tasted some fresh Merlot juice and some Merlot which has just completed fermentation. It was amazing how soft the tannins were showing already.

After a tour of the barrel cellar they had to get back to the grind stone!

Back to top