Sons of Sugarland Syrah

One grape…one clone…one vineyard…one immensely explosive Syrah that is truly a Syrah for Syrah lovers. The SH99 Syrah clone from the ‘Karibib Vineyard’ in the Polkadraai Hills in addition to a bit of sulfur is all that makes up this sublime wine. Reenen shares the 11 rows of Syrah with Lukas Van Loggerenberg (for his ‘Graft’ Syrah), Sam Lambson’s Minimalist Wines, as well as Jean Smit’s Damascene wines. This is the highest parcel of this ocean-facing vineyard that gets rammed by the cool breezes. Reenen’s goal with this wine is to make it as raw as possible but still with a pretty side. In a very short time this has risen to Syrah royalty in South Africa alongside Reenen’s ‘Epilogue’.

The fruit was hand-harvested in one morning and brought back to the winery where the fruit was placed into a concrete fermenter. Fermentation kicked off naturally with the juice on the skins and stems, and continued for 10 days. The lot was pressed to a 15hL concrete egg with gross lees intact and left to age for 10 months. It was bottled without fining or filtration and just a small addition of sulfur.

The nose has beguiling aromatics of red and black berries, rose, fynbos and white pepper while the palate shows particular poise and finesse – lovely fruit purity, bright acidity and powdery tannins. A supremely elegant rendition of the variety.

96 Points – The Wine Mag