Premier Stellenbosch wine producer Kleine Zalze has secured a spot in the prestigious Standard Bank Chenin Blanc Top 10 Challenge, demonstrating its commitment to harnessing the full potential of Chenin Blanc wines made from certified Heritage Vineyards of 35 years or older. The Kleine Zalze Family Reserve Chenin Blanc 2023 was among the top ten wines recognized in this year’s competition, the leading event in South Africa dedicated to showcasing wines crafted from this noble Cape cultivar.
RJ Botha, the winemaker at Kleine Zalze, views the Top 10 accolade as a testament to the winery’s ongoing dedication to Chenin Blanc and its relentless pursuit of excellence with a varietal that has always been central to its offerings. This dedication includes sourcing grapes from Stellenbosch vineyards that are registered as Heritage Vineyards by South Africa’s Old Vine Project, as well as building on traditional vinification processes to create exceptional wines.
“Wines made from Stellenbosch’s old Chenin Blanc vineyards have proven themselves as offering something truly unique,” says Botha. “Out of over 500 hectares of registered Old Vine Chenin Blanc in Stellenbosch, Kleine Zalze manages and uses 95 hectares, giving us access to fruit from these vineyards spread across the appellation’s diverse terroir. This has undoubtedly helped Kleine Zalze elevate its Chenin Blanc offering, and the results of this year’s Top 10 Challenge underscore this.”
The award-winning wine, the Kleine Zalze Family Reserve Chenin Blanc 2023, was crafted from Heritage Vineyards located in various wards of Stellenbosch, predominantly on decomposed granite soils, with most of the vines being bush-vines.
Botha notes that the lead-up to the 2023 season was characterized by a warm, dry winter and spring, resulting in drier-than-usual soil conditions at the onset of the growing season, which led to earlier bud break, flowering, and an earlier-than-usual harvest. “Fortunately, as Chenin Blanc is the earliest variety harvested at Kleine Zalze, the grapes were already in the cellar when the unseasonal rains hit in March last year,” he says.
The grapes underwent reductive crushing, followed by 12-18 hours of skin contact before settling. After a day of settling, the juice was racked off its gross lees into a stainless-steel tank, where it was inoculated with selected slow-fermenting yeast strains. The juice was then gravity-fed into 400L used French oak barrels, Italian terracotta amphorae, and concrete eggs for fermentation, with 70% of the final blend made up from the barrel-fermented component. The wine spent an additional eight months on the lees in the respective fermentation vessels, with no fining or filtration before bottling.
Botha is a staunch advocate of the unique qualities that old vineyards impart to wines, particularly Chenin Blanc. “Old Vine Chenin Blanc vineyards express the varietal character and terroir more vividly than younger vines,” he explains. “You see it in the tight bunches of small berries, the intoxicating aroma of the juice spreading through the cellar at harvest time, and the electric balance between sugar and acid, which leads to wines of multi-layered complexity.”
Research by the Old Vine Project confirms that wines from old vineyards possess discernible differences in concentration, texture, and length compared to those from younger vines. “No one says old vines make better wines, but that they have their own personality and unique fingerprint is non-negotiable,” says Botha.
As part of its recognition in the Chenin Blanc Challenge Top 10, Kleine Zalze receives a R25,000 award, which must be used to benefit the wine-worker communities involved. The winery has decided to allocate these funds to Visio Vintners, a wine brand owned by Kleine Zalze’s employees, to support the development of its markets.
