Brookdale Wines

Brookdale Sixteen Field Blend

R465

Per Bottle

At Brookdale Estate, we seek to explore our terroir not only with a site-specific approach, but also a vintage-specific one. The Brookdale Sixteen Field Blend exemplifies this mission. Tim Rudd is fascinated with the art of true field blends where grapes are ‘blended’ in the ‘field’, rather than grown and vinified separately before blending. In South Africa, field blends are typically different varieties grown in the same vineyard block, but kept separate in rows.

That’s not how we did it…

Availability: In stock

Door to door in South Africa. Estimated 5 – 10 working days.

WHITE FIELD BLEND

The Sixteen is comprised of 16 varietals, interplanted as bush vines without rhyme or reason. We wanted to explore the naturally occurring microclimates and profile of a wine that is a true South African field blend, as nature might have intended if she were a winemaker.

By doing so, we have recaptured the lost art of field blend winemaking. A wine of character, intrigue, and incredible flavour, this wine is a perfect evolution for the Brookdale Estate Wine Range.

THOUGHTS & REFLECTIONS

What customers & critics are saying

A stylish blend combines fourteen white Mediterranean varieties with Chardonnay and Chenin Blanc. Fermented and aged in clay amphoras and concrete eggs, it has aromas of honeysuckle and wild herbs and a palate of peach, pear and citrus supported by palate-cleansing acidity.

Tim Atkin MW

93 Points

TASTING NOTES

Pressed French linen on the line, meadow blossoms, light and lovely. Visions of flower crowns, of fresh grass trampled underfoot, of white strawberries, cranberries. It’s a midsummer of a wine. Evocative tug of toast, almonds and flint dances in. On the palate a creamy acid backbone sketches around luminous fruit, ascending into white-pear succulence and mouth-watering freshness. Defined by a weightless complexity, the fruit is ethereal, diaphanous, yet offers depth and dimension, and carries into a long, white-chalk finish.

WINEMAKING

A celebration of the lost art of field blend winemaking; 16 white varietals were inter-planted as bush vines on decomposed shale and granite. The grapes were picked at 4 different stages due to the ripening variation of the varietals. The fruit was pre-cooled and whole bunch pressed, before spontaneous fermentation, followed by 100% malolactic fermentation. 40% of the wine was fermented and aged in concrete egg and 60% in clay amphora for 12 months on lees prior to bottling and spent 4 months in bottle before release.