Spice Route Tarragon Old Vine Chenin Blanc 2024

Spice Route Tarragon Old Vine Chenin Blanc

Region: Swartland, Coastal Region, South Africa

Vintage: 2024

Bottle size: 75cl

Grape: Chenin Blanc

ABV: 13.5%

On the nose, fresh pineapple, peach, and a hint of fennel. The palate is layered with lemon and lime peel, with a creamy texture due to its oak ageing.

The fruit for this Chenin Blanc is sourced from vineyards planted in 1978 in the Swartland. The vines are planted on a south-east facing slope and are dry farmed, yielding small thick-skinned berries. The soils are predominantly koffieklip (decomposed granite and iron-rich clay), known for producing rich and concentrated wines.

Hand-harvested grapes are destemmed and gently pressed upon arrival at the winery, allowed to settle for 48 hours in stainless steel tanks. The juice was then transferred to 500L French oak barrels (12% new) to ferment. The wine then spends eight months in barrel before bottling.

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.