The Many Hands Syrah is a collaboration with our dedicated vineyard and cellar team – from planting the vines, to production, to bottling and labelling. Many hands working together.
The grapes for this wine were selected and vinified, by Shane De Vries, the team lead. The Many Hands are Asanda, Bongi, Cecil, Farieda, Lizzie, Matt and Simon.
Small parcels of grapes from the Sweetwater block were specifically selected according to ripeness, harvested by hand and vinified separately. This process was carried out gently and naturally in open top wooden. 50% of the fruit was fermented ‘whole bunch’. This wine spent 11 months maturing in a seasoned 300 Litre French oak barrel before being bottled by hand. We produced 399 bottles.
TASTING NOTE
Many Hands Syrah has a bright red colour. The bouquet is enticing with strawberries and other red fruit and notes of sandalwood, tea leaf, cloves, and orange rind. The wine starts subtlety on the palate and opens up with vibrant flavours of cherry and raspberry complimented by savoury spice and a herbal note. A velvety, but tight tannin structure and good natural acid keep the flavours focussed into a tidy succulent finish. Drink 2026-2035.The 2023 vintage will be remembered as one of the wettest growing seasons that we have had at Keermont. We had a nice cold and wet winter which set the vines on a good course. Spring saw warm conditions with regular rain, ideal for the development of the vine shoots and bunches. The season seemed to be drying out in November and the growth slowed down dramatically. In December we had a wave of cold fronts bringing in more rain and the vineyards started growing again giving the vineyard team lots of canopy work to do to prepare for harvest. Despite all the rain, we were able to stay on top of our schedule and establish healthy crops of grapes on the vines.
VINTAGE REPORT
2024 will be remembered as a good vintage on Keermont, although yields were generally very low resulting in a small crop. We had a very cold and wet winter resulting in substantial flooding in the Cape. Fortunately, we didn’t sustain too much damage, and the conditions were actually very beneficial to the vineyards. The cool, wet weather led to slow budding. The young shoots are suspectable to attack over this period, and damage can be caused by snails, duiker (small buck), and baboons. Spring warmed up and the vines started to grow strongly. We had good rain showers during the early season to keep the vineyards going. The middle of the season dried up and, from Christmas onwards, we experienced several heatwaves which dried the vineyards out quickly and led to some sunburn on exposed bunches. The light crop ripened quickly under the warm conditions, and we started harvesting early on January 23. We quickly progressed through the different varieties and by the end of February, all of the grapes had been picked.
ANALYSIS
Alc: 14.0%
pH: 3.57
TA: 5.2g/L
RS: 1.3g/L
TSO2: 116mg/L
VA: 0.90g/L
