Ringmuur Cinsault 2021 - AA Badenhorst

This vineyard was planted in the mid 1963 on decomposed granite soils. It is surrounded on two sides by an old farm ring wall. The vineyard is tiny and completely different from Badenhorst’s Cinsault vineyards. The total yield is 800kg of wonderful grapes. The grapes are sorted meticulously in the vineyard and transported in small picking boxes to a refrigerated container where they are left overnight to cool. The whole bunches are undergo carbonic fermentation in a small sealed tank. After 20 days of fermentation all the wine is transferred to a 500L vat. This wine was bottled directly off its gross lees immediately after 11 months in cask. Hermitake (Cinsault) has been the work horse of the South African industry but over the last couple of decades its star has waned, in favour of the fancy Shiraz and its likes. This is the first time we have managed to bottle this wine on its own. Light hue and vibrant colour. The aromatics are lifted and pure—typical of the carbonic-style. The tannin grip is velvety and there is a wonderful fruit concentration on the palate.

AA Badenhorst Family Wines are grown, made and matured on Kalmoesfontein farm in the Swartland appellation of South Africa. The 28ha of old bushvines grow in the Siebritskloof part of the Paardeberg mountain. The property is owned by the baie dynamic and good looking cousins Hein and Adi Badenhorst. They are originally from Constantia. Their grandfather was the farm manager of Groot Constantia for 46 years. Their fathers were born there and farmed together in Constantia, during the days when people still ate fresh vegetables and Hanepoot grapes, drank Cinsault and there were a lot less traffic lights and hippies still had a presence. Together these two have restored a neglected cellar on the farm that was last used in the 1930s to make natural wines in the traditional manner. Andre Adriaan Badenhorst grew up between the vineyards of Constantia and spent his time picking (stealing) grapes. 'It all started when Jean Daneel, then winemaker at Buitenverwachting, let me make my first wine when I was thirteen',Adi recalls. After completing his studies at Elsenburg, Adi worked a few harvests at Chateau Angelus,Alain Graillot in the north Rhone,Wither Hills in New Zealand and did stints at local cellars at Simonsig, Steenberg, Groote Post and nine years as winemaker at the esteemed Stellenbosch estate, Rustenberg. In 2008 he packed it all in and bought a 60-hectare piece of land in the Paardeberg with his cousin Hein. They now proudly farm together, practice biological farming and make natural wines in the traditional manner.