Swartland Wine Geeks on the Rise | Vine Venom Satellites Red Blend NV | S03.Ep69

VIDEO CHAPTER INDEX:
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00:00 - Wine Law loopholes... and the crazy shenanigans they allow.
01:42 - Intro to the wine of the day
01:57 - Meet winemaker Samantha Suddons
03:06 - What is VINE VENOM?
03:19 - What is a NV wine (or non-vintage wine)?
04:29 - How was the VINE VENOM Satellites wine made?
05:46 - Tasting Notes for the VINE VENOM Satelites wine
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The Purplest Cow in South African Wine
Samantha Suddons is a fascinating human being. If you bump into her at a wine festival, she will no doubt be garbed in full head-to-toe maximum glam, with flowing sundresses and outsized designer sunnies, quite possibly discussing art history under a silk umbrella... but catch her 24 hours later, on a Monday morning in the cellar, and she may well present as a crimson-stained, nerdy cellar rat with dirty hands and a brain full of ideas about everything from flor formation to Touriga's rate of colour extraction.
And really, when you have a look at Samantha's range of Vine Venom wines, this contrast couldn't be more completely expressed. Her wine labels feature abstract artworks produced by Cape town artist Daniel Levi - showcasing Samantha's keen eye for spotting artistic talent, and the wines themselves couldn't be more nerdy; the range includes everything from a skin-contact Chenin Blanc, to a white wine aged under flor, through to today's HanDrinksSolo wine of the day: a non-vintage lighter red wine blended from a combination of whole-bunch pressed Touriga Nacional and Cinsault, blended with barrel-matured Syrah and Grenache.
Now if you have yet to sign up for your Monthly HanDrinksSolo Wine Subscription then you won't be able to taste how those elements all come together, but i have done my best to express the wine through some tasting notes, along with some technical and winemaking specs:
TASTING NOTES
👃🏼 A delightfully playful nose of pink musk sweets, pomegranate, cherry fruit, with a more serious touch of fresh herbs fennel and lavender.
👄 The palate is a vibrant dance of juicy red berries, sweet candy and a paper-thin tannic frame that keeps things interesting. The palate is awash for the freshest of fresh red plum and pomegranate, which in turn blends with slightly darker blackcurrant pastilles, strawberry preserve. But as soon as one lingers on the sweeter elements, they are in turn offset by lively cherry sherbet elements and, again, an ever so slight tickle of cherry tannins on the finish.
TECHNICAL SPECS
🔬 Wine of Origin Paardeberg. Made with fruit sourced from Francziska Wickens' farm, Waterval farm, in the Swartland wine ward of the Paardeberg. This wine is an unusual Touriga Nacional lead blend (65%) with this second release still featuring the Syrah from the last blend (10%), along with some current vintage Grenache (20%) and smidge of Cinsault [fermented on skins] (5%).
The Touriga and Cinsault were whole bunch pressed together in order to preserve the intense strawberry and rose petal aromas, and then fermented in stainless steel. Samantha then transferred them to old 400l barrels for aging. The Grenache & Syrah components were left on their skins until dry, pressed and then aged in old barrels.
Blending of the components is always done by taste in order to try and preserve that very pronounced house style; the sort of method made famous by some of the most lauded Champagne houses in the world.

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