Thursday, August 23, 2018

Bottling The Vineyard Hotel's 2018 Sauvignon blanc at Klein Constantia

The Vineyard Hotel in Newlands has a small vineyard which produces Sauvignon Blanc and Semillon grapes. They are vinified each year by one of the partner wineries and this year it was the turn of wine maker Mathew Day at Klein Constantia.  On Friday we were invited to help with the bottling of the new wines from the 2018 vintage at the farm

We gathered in the tasting room
 Matthew Day of Klein COnstantia and Ndaba Dube the Vineyard Hotel's F & B Manager
They welcomed us with a glass of the Klein Constantia 2014 MCC
A quick look at the Vinoteque as we headed for the cellar. Some lovely historic wines there, we are very covetous
Marize Uys and Joaquim Sá of Amorim Cork
 Klaus Schilling, photographer Gavin and Lynne chatting to Matt
Hey, they even bottle their own water!
Lose this one and move the other up The wine has to be decanted into the bottling machine. There was not enough this year to put in a barrel.
The pour
Move up
Joakin Sa of Amorin Cork and KC;s  marketing ?? just checking that the machine work
Pour carefully, we dont want to lose a drop
Matt with ROy Davis Managing Director ???title??? of the Vineyard Hotel
Roy Davis telling us about the harvest this year
We all get to take two bottles to the maching and get it filled
Lex ???Petousis owner of the Vineyard Hotel gets to go first
This is how you do it
Ndaba Dube with his two bottles
THe tasting room with the wine cellar on view behind the glass windows
Alan Wickstrom gave us a taste of the excellent 2015 Klein Constantia Estate Red before everyone left for lunch at the Vineyard Hotel. There, they would be tasting some previous vintages. Sadly we had a previously accepted media appointment so had to miss it

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