Garage Winemaking in South Africa Less is More - Cape Wine ...

It is worth occasionally checking the Volatile Acidity during maturation. If it rises
dramatically it is a sign that you have unwanted bacteria in your wine and action
might be needed.
Most labs then offer a pre-bottling analysis to make sure your wine is healthy and if
filtration is needed. Your Free and Total SO 2 are tested so that you can adjust to
your desired level. Total Acidity will say if last minute acid adjustments are needed.
Volatile Acidity, pH, % Alcohol and Residual Sugar are also tested. A micro ID is also
recommended. Making sure your wine is ready for bottling is vital to avoid disasters
in the bottle.
Garagistes Winemaking Examples
I communicated with over two dozen micro producers for this paper. Most have
day jobs that are not winemaking and are garagiste producers for the love of it.
Some have cellars and some rent. Some have vineyards and some buy grapes.
Following are a few examples.
Brett Chrystal lives in Parkhurst and Stuart Campbell in Parkmore, Sandton. They
have teamed up to bring you Parks Winery, where they are currently processing half
a ton of grapes in, what else, a double garage! They source their grapes from
Esperon in the Helshoogte Pass, Stellenbosch. Brett explains how they get the
grapes to Johannesburg. “We basically liaise with the wine-grower at Esperon, who
advises us of the Balling. When we anticipate it will reach about 25ºB, we get him to
harvest for us. These bunches are placed into a Kaymac double walled insulated
container we bought, and which we have transported down to Rudi Schultz at
Thelema. Once the lug boxes are full at Esperon, they transfer these to our Kaymac
container, and Rudi stores it in his fridges until Stuart's brother (who lives in the
Cape) can take this 500L Kaymac container to a depot in Stellenbosch the same day
of the harvest. LMC, the courier company that we use, then transport this overnight
in a refrigerated truck to a depot near Kempton Park (near OR Tambo airport) where
my partner picks up the Kaymac container using a truck borrowed from his work, and
then transports it to his house in Parkmore, Sandton. There is no more than 24 hours
between harvesting and hand sorting / crushing, with the cold chain kept more or
less intact for the duration.” They chose Shiraz because it is their favourite varietal
and difficult to make a total mess of it. They hand sort, ferment in 200 litre food grade
plastic bins, punch down 2-3 times a day, press with a 90kg manual basket press
and use plastic buckets to move the wine to barrel. The wine matures in barrel for 9-
12 months, they rack once, egg white fine, and bottle and cork by hand. 72
Moving from Gauteng to Kwa Zulu Natal, Ian and Jane Smorthwaite, from
Abingdon Estate in the Midlands, planted their own grapes to produce their current
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