Optenhorst Single Vineyard Bushvine Chenin Blanc Wellington, 2018

During my last trip to the Cape Winelands, I had the great pleasure of spending an informal evening with Rosa Kruger and fellow MW Cathy Van Zyl. Rosa is the founder of the “Old Vine Project” in South Africa: what she doesn’t know about old vines and South African viticultural history is not worth knowing. Elegant in stature yet tough as nails, Rosa has made it her life work to understand why wines produced from grapes grown on old vines can be so complex and intriguing. Several days earlier, I had visited Bosman’s Optenhorst vineyard of Chenin Blanc planted in 1952 – and had been blown away by the wine. The 2018 is creamy in texture with layers of flavours with vanilla, nectarines, white peaches, apricots, cream and lemon citrus. To think that this vineyard came very close to being uprooted, had it not been for Corlea!