Consistency is king

Further Ratings in the 90’s now confirms the consistency in quality or De Toren Fusion V. De Toren Fusion V’s 1999 maiden Vintage was crowned with 90 points from Wine Spectator and various other critics around the world. This was followed by a 91 rating for the 2000 vintage; 91 for 2001 vintage; 89 for the 2002 vintage, 91 for 2003 and again for our latest release 91 Points.

Consistency in quality is what the consumer wants and we have proved beyond doubt that De Toren Fusion V can be purchased with great confidence at any time.

Cabernet Sauvignon is increasingly successful in South Africa (though I find South African Syrah to be more exciting). Vintners are obviously catching on: Plantings of Cabernet Sauvignon have gone from 11,500 acres to over 67,000 acres in the last 10 years. Most of the wines show a good mix of currant fruit with modest herb and tobacco notes. The structures are more like Bordeaux, with obvious but fine-grained tannins, than New World versions.

DE TOREN Fusion V Coastal Region 2004  91 points | $45
This features a good, solid beam of raspberry and fig fruit, along with fig, mocha and cocoa notes. Nice length, with a vibrant minerally spine on the finish. Cabernet Sauvignon, Cabernet Franc, Merlot, Malbec and Petit Verdot. Drink now through 2009. 300 cases imported. —J.M.

Steve Tanzer also rates 2004 De Toren Fusion V 91 points!

DE TOREN Fusion V Coastal Region 2004     91 points (+?)
($45; a Bordeaux blend based on 55% cabernet sauvignon; aged for two years in mostly French oak, 50% new) Full red-ruby. Vibrant aromas of blackcurrant, minerals, bitter chocolate and licorice. Supple, suave and impressively concentrated, but far more backward than the Z owing to its higher percentage of cabernet sauvignon (55%, vs. 34%). Densely packed and minerally, in the understated style of a traditionally made Bordeaux. Very long and subtle on the back end. Needs at least five or six years of aging. (Cape Classics, New York, NY)

click here to order now

More about Fusion V

Watch what Gary Vaynerchuk of the Wine Library in the U. S. A. has to say about Fusion V in his column Gary Vaynerchuk tastes 4 very different wines and that’s that!

click here to watch

Back to top

Last letter Z becomes the first word in wine from De Toren

Maiden vintage scored 90 Points by Steve Tanzer – U S A

2004 De Toren Z Coastal Region                             90 points
($30; a five-variety Bordeaux blend) Good deep ruby-red. Distinctly wild aromas of plum, dark berries, leather, spice cake and flowers. Sweet and pliant but high-toned and sauvage, with a strong spice character to the dark berry, chocolate and game flavors. Firm acids and lush tannins do not get in the way of the wine's sweetness. I find a lot of personality here, but this is not for the faint of heart. This spends one year in a combination of French and American oak.

Intricately crafted from grapes grown under the gentle influence of southern zephyrs blowing in from False Bay, De Toren’s Z has already blown up the charts with a 90 point rating from authoritative wine advocate Steve Tanzer and a top-ten debut at the definitive Winex expositions in Cape Town and Johannesburg.

The International Wine and Spirits Competition, Decanter, Swiss International Airline Awards, Selections Mondiales des Vins - Canada and Veritas have also awarded the 2004 vintage of Z with various medals.

The new Z from our stable seems set to follow in the footsteps of “Big Brother” Fusion V who also scored 90 points on debut. We believe that Z is set on the same path and will become an equal partner in stature under our label.

“When the vineyard Z was named we never thought we were starting at the bottom of the class,” said Albie Koch Wine Maker at De Toren.

“We created a silken wine that represents the dominant cultivars of Merlot and Cabernet Franc. It echoes the flavours of rose petals, plums and blue berries yet retains its own identity through a very complex tissue of ripe tannins.”

click here to order now

Back to top

Our daughter gets married

The Wedding of the Year at De Toren

Fifteen December was a big day at De Toren Private Cellar. Our only daughter Talia got married to Willem Maritz.

Talia owns the Vergelegen and Stellenbosch Nutrition Centres. Here she and her team of Dieticians consult on the various dietary requirements of their clients. Her new Husband Willem is an entrepreneur with businesses in Insurance and Information Technology.

A great love for red wine is one of Talia’s passions and off course our Fusion V her favourite. Her case of the maiden 1999 vintage is still carefully tucked away in our cellar.

We decided to have the wedding ceremony in the cellar followed by champagne and snacks. A Jazz band played from the balcony of the tasting room while the guest enjoyed champagne and completed the poster painting of Talia and Willem. There-after the couple traveled to the restaurant in my trusted old Valiant Regal (1971). The reception was held at the fabulous Tokara Restaurant on the hills of Stellenbosch’s Helshoogte.

Back to top

Chocolate meets wine

Chocolate Meets Wine Comes to South Africa

Chocolate and wine tasting is the current rave around the world and South Africa is not far behind

Traditionally these tasting’s are done with regular hade made chocolates. Mostly these chocolates are one dimensional and contain the same or even varying amounts of Cacao. In Belgium, the World’s Chocolate Masters, The Lago Chocolate Company, has now developed a chocolate specifically for pairing with wine

1. High quality wine – high quality chocolate.
2. The higher the cacao content the drier the wine may be.
3. Bitter sweet or semi-sweet chocolate pairs best with red wine.
4. The higher the tannin content of a red wine the stronger the chocolate should be.
5. Wine first on the tongue and then the chocolate.

These chocolates contain no herbs or spices and the sugar levels are controlled depending on the amount of Cacao in the chocolate. They come in packs of 100gms with 10 wafers in each pack.

In the 35% Cacao the sweet ingredients dominate and the slightly bitter cacao is confronted by a distinctly detectable sweetness. Designed to pair with sweeter white wines like Noble Late Harvest, Ice Wine, Sauternes, sweet Rieslings or even Port

In the 50% Cacao the bitterness dominates slightly over sweeter ingredients in the chocolate. As the sweetness is slightly in the background the chocolate pair well with Gewürztraminer, Merlot or Grenache or even Tawny or medium dry sherry.

In the 69% Cacao the cacao more distinctly dominates, the sweetness is restrained, and the elegantly bitter ingredients underline the taste sensation. This chocolate pairs well with heavy well structured wines with mature tannins. Ideal companions are Pinot Noir, Tempranillo, Nebbiolo or Barbera or alternatively Cream sherry or Ruby Port

In the 77% Cacao prefers aromatic and heavy structured wines like Shiraz, Cabernet or even Malbec, Zinfandel and a heavy Port. The flavours here are stamped by a semi dry note. This distinct hint of bitterness and the chocolaty dry taste sensation will demand heavy, lusty, full bodied wines.

Chocolates available at most top end wine retailers. Contact us at info@de-toren.com to direct you to the nearest retailer

Back to top

2006 WINEMAKERS REPORT BY ALBIE KOCH

Reading my 2006 harvest report it felt like yesterday and here we are 365 days later and we are at it again. First day of harvest 1 March - Last day of harvest we expect 11 April.

It is now been proven: A winemaker that makes wine out of a book is bound to fail because this year, apart from the very young blocks that we started with, the Cabernet Franc was harvested first. This was the first time since De Toren’s maiden vintage (1999) that we did not start with Merlot or Malbec. It seems that soil moisture management is becoming a very important tool to optimize the ripening process.

The heat wave at the end of January was followed a week later with 40mm of rain and this really forced you to think carefully!

38mm of rain again at the beginning March – do we harvest or do we sort out rot! Patience paid off.

The grapes came in at optimal ripeness and near perfect chemical analyses. This was the first time in many years that we have ideal analyses at harvest time. The merlot and cabernet franc gave reduced yields due to sunburn but blessed us great flavours. The relatively new vineyards for or Z wines showed unbelievable quality – wait for a great wine here!

The Cabernet Sauvignon withstood the heat extremely well and a healthy crop was harvested. All in all a difficult vintage to manage but in the end we think we did a good Job! The proof will be in the bottle in 2010

Back to top

HARVEST REPORT BY ERNEST MANUEL 2007

Weather Conditions:
Our rainfall for the season was 582mm with the first rains early in April and continued evenly spread till August. This early moisture in the soil combined with enough cold nights ensured good budding and early growth. The light spring rains and a cooler veraisson period ensured one of the best growing seasons we have had in years.

Harvest:
Due to wet and windy conditions during a significant part of the flowering and setting period the fruit set was weaker. This evolved in a natural light crop set and hardly any fruit had to be dropped to obtain optimal fruit bearing balance. We are extremely impressed with the high quality of the first harvest from our newly establish vineyards. We anticipate an excellent vintage from these vineyards. The aerial images revealed that the vineyards’ canopy was of adequate height throughout ensuring an even ripening of all the berries.

Pest and Diseases:
The optimal weather throughout the 2006 growing seasons ensured a disease free season. Our ducks’ hunting skills were put to the test in controlling an outbreak of snails and I’m glad to say they won the battle.

Overall Impression on the 2006 Vintage:
With the near perfect growing and ripening weather with maximum hours of photosynthesis we expect a high quality vintage. Moderate day temperatures and cool nights ensured good colours and complex flavours.

Back to top

Secrets of our success Part 12

De Toren made extensive use of phenolic ripeness measurements in the past three seasons. Andy Roediger who now has obtained his Cape Wine Masters wrote his thesis on phenolic ripeness in South Africa and is one of three laboratories that offer this service.

The phenolic ripeness measurements indicate how the grape is maturing instead of measuring traditional balling, pH and total acidity and using these parameters to determine when the grapes are ripe. The measurement of phenolic ripeness is most commonly carried out by a method developed by Glories in Bordeaux in the late 1980’s. This analytical method has been modified to adapt to local conditions and has also been changed in such a way which allows a large number of samples to be evaluated per day. Although the analysis is lengthy, it requires up to 6 hours to obtain reasonable laboratory results which also emulate the winemaking conditions, the results are obtained on the same day that the samples are submitted and quite often a discussion about the results would be entered into as the technique makes use of various parameters that should be at optimum to achieve perfect phenolic ripeness.

Essentially phenolic ripeness first of all assesses the quality of the grapes which is a culmination in the grape variety as well as the suitability of the variety to the terroir that it is planted in. The quality is essentially monitored by the amount of anthocyanins present in the grapes and thus it is very difficult to harvest grapes at a stage when the anthocyanins are increasing as this means that the quality of the resultant wine is still increasing. In addition the laboratory extraction percentage of the measured anthocyanins is a very important factor in determining the ripeness of a grape. Further measurements that are conducted are the amounts of tannin present in the grape which is subdivided into seed and skin tannins. Further information that is provided is the contribution of tannins to the total phenolic compounds as well as tannin to anthocyanin ratio. This information is important in stabilising the polymeric colour compounds in the wine, and thus preventing early bottle precipitation. Finally to further quantify the quality of the grapes a total phenolic index (TPI) is also reported on.

De Toren uses the phenolic ripeness measurement only as an additional tool to confirm the quality and condition of grapes and to assess the phenolic maturity.

From the phenolic ripeness analysis it has been established that most of the grapes planted on the estate are of extreme high quality and some viticultural practices have been adapted to increase the quality of the grapes.

We trust that you are pleased with the results.

Back to top

De Toren Wines in Zimbabwe

Most people consider Zimbabwe a country destroyed by its leader Robert Mugabe and its people live in absolute poverty. To a great extent this is true. There is however a couple of small tourist attractions that still draw tourist and one of the world wonders – Victoria Falls is such a place. We went there to explore the possibility of marketing our wines in the area and were pleasantly surprised. There are many fine hotels along the river and over and above visiting the falls you can do adventure sports, helicopter flips, sunset cruises or riding elephants.

For almost 100 years, visiting members of Royal families, international and local statesmen, and celebrities worldwide, have preferred to stay at The Victoria Falls Hotel. An atmosphere steeped in history, combining the charm of the old with the comfort and convenience of today. We stayed at The Safari Lodge where we could do game viewing from the verandah while sipping sundowners!

On the Zambian side we were spoilt for 1 night at the 5 star Stanley and Livingstone Hotel. The sundowners on the deck over the great Zambezi, just 100 meters from the falls were very, very special.

Look out for our wines when you get the chance to visit!

Back to top

Dayne Stern
- Representative Western Cape

Anel Schoeman
 - Marketing Secretary

Melvin January
- Cellar Assistant

Christine Viljoen
- Distribution Manager

New Appointments

Yes we are growing a quite a pace. Our winery is growing rapidly and the successes of our own distribution within South Africa are bearing fruit! So much so, that both our 2004 vintages of Fusion V and “Z” are nearly sold out.

Dayne Stern is a young energetic fellow that cut his teeth in hotel management at the stunning Cape Grace Hotel in the Cape Town Waterfront. He fell in love with wine and took a position at one of our leading Cape Wine Merchants Caroline’s Fine Wines. Here he honed his skills on South African wines. Dayne is servicing our clients in the Cape Region of South Africa

Anel Schoeman is our new marketing secretary. She hails from one of Cape Towns new eastern suburbs. Anel is a keen netball player and made it into our regional teams. Not scared, she goes white water rafting and all the other adrenalin sports.

Anel looks after our reception, our database and performs secretarial duties for all our sales and marketing staff.

Better still she brings the boss crayfish ever so often!

Melvyn January (no he was not born in January) is cellar assistant to Albie Koch. He is being taught all the finer things in cellar management and hygiene. Oh and we are teaching him to drive the forklift.

A keen and agile sportsman and rugby player, the disciplines taught in these sports make him an ideal fit into the De Toren Team.

Welcome Melvyn!

Christine Viljoen has just joined us to manage our distribution portfolio. We definitely needed another pretty female in our male dominated environment! Christine will manage our stock in the various warehouses around the country, see that our clients are served with a smile and also manage our indents.

Christine joins us from J F Hillebrand one of the countries major wine logistics companies.

Back to top