Saturday, May 07, 2022

Elgin Cool Wine Festival - 1. Lothian

We looked back at our records and we have been visiting Elgin for their Cool Wine Festival since 2014! It is the perfect time for a wine festival; autumn is upon us and there are lovely glowing colours in the trees in this cool wine area. The programme for this year included 9 wine farms and we planned to visit over both days. You cannot do them justice if you rush at it. So we drove up that morning to arrive at our first stop, Lothian, at 10h30

Checked in by Angie from Webtickets, we were given our armbands and glasses
Tickets were a reasonable R250 for the weekend; they gave visitors access to all the farms taking part

Lothian is a very glamorous location;
the huge house can be hired out for large parties and is often used for film and television productions

We didn’t manage to lie on a sun bed while tasting and admiring the lake view, but it is a tempting prospect

But they are also a working wine estate, with wines made by the renowned Richard Kershaw with Dudley Wilson
and their viticulturist is Kevin Watt. Co-Owner Ewen Wilson was on duty in the tasting room



We tasted the 2019 Riesling, very much in the Cape style,
very dry with good lemon and lime flavours, dark toast and some terpenes 

The 2019 Chardonnay has lovely perfume, peach and a hint of oak and white pepper on the nose
Creamy, crisp, complex; it reveals itself in layers with good crisp acidity and some well-balanced wood on the end

The 2019 Mourvèdre Rosé is light in weight, with lots of Mourvèdre’s classic character and some perfume of rose petals

The pale garnet 2019 Pinot Noir has wood smoke then brûléed cherry on the nose,
cranberry, morello cherry and plum on the palate with a hint of mint

The Horny Owl Chardonnay sur lie was exciting
A lovely nose with clean white fruit, and a good leesy character on the end palate, crisp, layered and rounded

The 2017 Lothian Noble Late Harvest is made from Viognier and is not a heavy or too sweet variation;
it has lots of honey and peach notes. This is the last of its type from the farm;
the viognier vines have been cut from the rootstocks and replaced with Pinot noir.
We didn't get to taste the Brut Rosé MCC which is made from Pinot noir

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