Vilafonté...vines and wines with personality
A walk through vineyards can take you to a kind of wonderland, with the significant aura imparted from vines. This view is upheld as Zelma Long, winemaking partner at Vilafonté and a doyenne of the wine industry, talks about how each block has a personality while wandering through Vilafonté’s vineyards near Paarl. There are a few boutique wineries to be found; this one offers something special in its Series M and C. Here are some of the reasons why: the soil, personality, blend, and its age-ability.
With the adage ‘wine is made in the vineyard’, this is how it is done the Vilatonté way, the first American-South African union. Not planted far apart, four red varieties, Cabernet Sauvignon, Cabernet Franc, Merlot and Malbec are grown. Each section of vines have a special resonance, resulting in a final blend with components that have all come into their own individual essence. American-born Zelma has an ability to decipher and decode the charm of the vines, along with insights into the growth from husband viticulturist Phil Freese.
In 2000, Zelma noticed that both the Merlot and Cabernet, from different blocks, tended to have two different personalities; one deep and structured; the other open, and fruit forward. She felt the site suggested two different wine styles and proposed to partners Mike Ratcliffe and Phil Freese the making of two kinds of wines; which ultimately became Vilafonte’s Series M and C-wines.
I’m completely enamoured by the experience and promise myself I’ll be back, also to visit the wineries next door, all set just over the tracks from Bosman’s Crossing, Stellenbosch.
Vilafonté tel 021 884 4410; Stellakaya tel 021 883 3873; Dalla Cia tel 021 888 4120
FIND OUT MORE - Click below to read about:
How can soil make a difference?
Do grapes really have different personalities?
What are the benefits of a blend?
Should Vilafonté Series M and C lay down and age?
How can soil make a difference?
The site of Vilafonté has very old stone tools lying in the soil, aging one-half million years or older, found close to the soil surface, therefore depicting no significant amount of new soil deposited on the site. Says Phil Freese, “Thus, we have really old soils! Highly weathered in combination with the Cape climate, it is a great place to grow outstanding wines.”
Of Soil and Site
The soil types are wide ranging with very low to moderate vegetative potential that is not very common in the Cape. This combination was desirable, as well as the aged, gravel-containing clay soils – not commonly available in great winegrowing regions. Phil considers clay soils a good way to get ‘texture’ in wines, most likely linked to the vine’s struggle to extract water from the clay soils, resulting in the very small berries found at Vilafonté. This site “revealed a potential to grow vines that are not overly vegetative.” As he says, “some use the word ‘vigorous’ in place of the term ‘vegetative’. Vigorous is really about the verb expressing rate of growth. Vegetative or ‘size’ of a vine is the overall size of the vine, derived from the amount of total shoot growth, with integration of site, soil, plant materials and management.”
Do grapes really have different personalities?
For each of the 17 blocks they have demarcated, Zelma Long knows them by their ‘personality’. In making the Series M and Series C, she is already well acquainted with their characteristics. Later, as we do a vertical tasting, I’m struck by how the wines further develop, and become even more interesting as they seem to impart their own story of time in their blend components.
Grape Personalities
Each variety is harvested and vinified separately and blended to make Series C and Series M in the middle of their barrel aging cycle. Here the personalities grow in importance. Zelma notes that as the personalities of the blocks have become better understood over the years, their winegrowing and winemaking has matured to better reflect the individualities of each block:
“Malbec is fruit expressive and fleshy. Cabernet Franc, more elegant and perfumed, preferred for the Series C wine. Several of the Cabernet Sauvignon blocks are very ‘big’, tight, and structured. One Merlot block is luscious and powerful; another is luscious and elegant. Yet another block is fruit forward with some structure.”
To see Zelma’s interpretation of each term, scroll down.
The Series C wines are built on structured, powerful, and luscious attributes, given the elegant Cabernet Franc. The Series M wines are built on fleshy, fruit forward blocks with a percentage of structure. Both are built for the "long haul".
What are the benefits of a blend?
Harmony, balance, concentration and complexity are the hallmarks of world class wines. As we progress through a tasting from 2003 to 2010, there are lengthier, more complex notes that range from ripe black cherry, vanilla and some chocolate, through to cedar, plummy, and red currant bursts of flavour.
Benefits of the blend
Zelma and Phil feel that there are very few vineyards anywhere in the world of one variety that produce all desirable characteristics. Blending melds together the specific nature of different varieties to produce a more complete wine. This can also take place within the same variety. A Cabernet's harmony, for example, could be enhanced by blending this variety from different locations. Each will bring unique characteristics As Phil says, “The Vilafonté site can produce different wines from the same variety.”
Should Vilafonté Series M and C lay down and age?
Zelma and Phil open a bottle of red wine (varied) for dinner, leave the bottle corked, on the counter and finish it over the next day or so. Inevitably the young reds are better the second day, and recently they’ve had a wine that was better after four days of opening. Decanting helps evolve a wine as it ‘opens up’. For Zelma, the time a wine lasts in the glass or open bottle is a measure of how long it is likely to age, laid down in the cellar.
The aging potential of Series C and Series M
Aging in the barrel ranges from 20 to 23 months. Solid, well-made red wines benefit from a least a year of age in the bottle, for all varieties. But, there is not really a formula.
Phil and Zelma remark that each consumer may have preferences for younger, more fruit expressive as opposed to more aged wines. Wines should be balanced, flavourful and pleasurable to drink both young and old, and it is a Vilafonté ethos that this is entirely possible; accessibility with aging promise.
Zelma Long comments on recent vintages:
2005 and 2007 are particularly powerful vintages and will continue to become even more flavourful.
The 2005 Series M drinks very well now.
The first vintage, 2003, was a significant year and Series C is still evolving.
The 2006, 2004 and 2008 were more accessible, elegant vintages.
2006 Series M is a favourite; and the Series C has won many accolades.
2009, 2010, and 2011 vintages are revealing themselves.
Characteristics of the wines and Zelma's interpretation of each term:
Luscious: powerful fruit concentration
Structured: the ‘bones’ or foundation of the wine; usually built on its tannin structure
Fleshy: an overlaid sense of roundness and soft tannins
Powerful: intense, concentrated
Elegant: finely textured, fine lines; good concentration that is not obvious
Fruit forward: aromatically and flavour-wise, very expressive of the black and red fruits of the cultivar.
