Spice Route Swartland Mourvedre 2023

Spice Route Swartland Mourvedre

Region: Swartland, Coastal Region, South Africa

Vintage: 2023

Bottle size: 75cl

Grape: Pinotage

ABV: 13%

Dark ruby in hue. The nose features ripe black cherries, plums, raspberries, cardamom, and wild herbs. On the palate, juicy black and red berries with a savoury edge. Medium-bodied with ripe tannins and well-integrated oak.

Spice Route is producing some of the most exciting wines in the Swartland. The grapes were harvested from unirrigated bushvines, which were originally planted in 2001 on deep Koffieklip and Oakleaf soils. The average yield was 3.5 tons per hectare.

Hand-harvested grapes are destemmed and gently crushed into open concrete fermenters. Regular manual punch downs occur over the seven-day fermentation, after which the wine is pressed off the skins and then transferred to old French and American barrels for final maturation.

Charles Back was a pioneer in the Swartland when he started Spice Route in 1998 after tasting an exceptional Sauvignon Blanc and immediately buying the land on which it was grown. "Without [Charles]…the Swartland would still be regarded as a rural backwater" wrote Tim Atkin, who awarded the winery ‘Cru Bourgeois’ status in his South Africa Classification in 2019. Today, the region is the source of many of South Africa’s outstanding wines, yet Spice Route remains one of the best and most credible producers in the region, due largely to the fact that they own their own vineyards.