Almond, Lemon Peel, Salty

Stellenbosch / White / Chenin Blanc / Organic

Grapes are handpicked and transported to the winery in less than 30 minutes. 70% are destemmed and left on the skins to macerate for 4 nights before being basket pressed into 400 litre neutral oak barrels for a spontaneous fermentation. The other 30% undergoes a soft whole bunch press, and ferments in neutral barrels. The wine ages on fine lees in barrel and concrete for nine months. There is no bâtonnage. Wines are bottled without fining, filtration and just a touch of SO2. From the 2021 vintage the wine will be made entirely in concrete. 

 Notes on the producer

Bernhard Bredell grew up on his family farm in the Lower Helderberg, southeast of Stellenbosch, where his family have been farming grapes for seven generations. He set up Scions of Sinai in 2016 after studying oenology, viticulture and soil sciences at the University of Stellenbosch, and working on vineyards in France and Spain. The name reflects this commitment to both land and family: a scion having the dual meaning of a young vine shoot and a generational descendant. The project is based around a granite outcrop colloquially known as Sinai Hill, and his goal is to make pure authentic wines from dry-farmed bush vines grown here. Many of the vineyards he works with were planted in the late 60’s to mid 70’s by Koos and Pieter Bredell. Bernhard is low-intervention in the cellar - slow fermentations in open-top vats, ageing in old oak, no manipulations to the juice or wines and no filtration. His goal is expression of a place, a vineyard, it’s history and its soil. “I’m not trying to be weird or funky – for me what’s most important is to have that line between vineyard and glass as uncompromised as possible,”