Durbanville Hills The Tangram Red Blend

Description

Durbanville Hills The Tangram Red Blend is a Bordeaux style blend from South Africa. It is a blend of Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot, Cabernet Franc, Petit Verdot and Malbec grown in the WO Durbanville. It is the flagship red wine for Durbanville Hills and is named after the Tangram, a Chinese geometrical puzzle consisting of five triangles, a square and a rhomboid, which can be arranged to make various forms and pictures to tell a story.

Durbanville Hills wines is a small collection of growers, a small co-operative really, with a centralised winery. The collective was originally formed in the late 1990s when a group of seven local grape farmers made an agreement with Distell that Distell would build a new cellar to make wine their 7 farms. The Durbanville Hills cellars are located some 20 minutes from Cape Town’s city centre and overlooks Table Mountain, Table Bay and Robben Island. This is an ultramodern facility that can compare with the world’s best. The cool climate region, the best grapes and modern winemaking produce excellent quality wines.

Today there are 9 growers, whose vineyards are all located closed to the cellars. The nine member farms are Klein Roosboom, Ongegund, Hillcrest, Maastricht, Morgenster, Bloemendal and Hooggelegen. Another two producers from the farms Welbeloond and De Grendel recently joined the cellar. Vineyards in the regions date back to the late 17th century, the Klein Roosboom farm was established in 1714 for example.

The grapes for Durbanville Hills The Tangram Red Blend are all sourced from blocks of vine with an average age of around 20 years old. Satellite technology was used to identify the premium spots in each block. Only grapes from these spots were harvested and used to make this wine. To ensure gentle handling of the grapes during harvest, the winemakers hand-selected the dedicated team that picked the grapes. The grapes were meticulously sorted by an automated sorting table that does berry-by-berry selection to ensure only the best grapes were selected from each cultivar.

Small volumes of Cabernet Franc and Petit Verdot meant that the berries were pumped directly to 1000 litre tubs to allow for open-top fermentation with manual punch-downs. The Malbec was made in similar fashion in open top 500 litre barrels. This method produces softer tannins, better extraction of flavours and overall complexity.  The winemakers selected new French oak with a tight grain to allow for slow extraction of flavours from the wood. Each varietal was matured separately for two years after which only the best barrels of each was identified for the final blend. After blending the wine was left to mature for a further year in the bottle.

The Durbanville Hills The Tangram Red Blend is a blend of mainly Cabernet Sauvignon with smaller amounts of Merlot, Cabernet Franc, Petit Verdot and Malbec.