7 February 2004
With Chenin Blanc and Chardonnay fermenting away happily (and tasting pretty good), the Cloof cellar is in full Pinotage swing at the moment.

Christopher is draining about 20% of the juice from younger blocks after allowing a few hours’ skin contact. We have two reasons for doing this. Firstly, the juice we ‘bleed’ is fermented like white wine to make rosé (hence the French term saignée). The effect of this is to change the ratio between skin and juice, so that the red wine we make from the Pinotage grapes is much more concentrated (as if our fruit needed more concentrating!).

The portion intended for red wine undergoes a four-day cold soak before being inoculated with yeast. This allows for a gentle extraction of colour and flavour from the skins, without simultaneously extracting harsh tannins, which is sometimes one of the negative factors associated with Pinotage. This is followed by four days of fermentation “on the skins”, with the temperature being allowed to rise above 30ºC (more extraction happens at higher temperatures), before the juice is pressed off the skins to complete fermentation on its own.

Following a recipe for sour dough starter in the fabulous book, Moro, we have made two ‘starters’ – one with Pinotage grapes, and another with fermenting Pinotage must. Bread to follow in about two weeks…