Nederburg Winemasters Riesling, Western Cape

Description

Nederburg Winemasters Riesling is a fruity, off-dry style of South African riesling made with grapes grown in the Western Cape. Nederburg Winemasters Riesling is so named to honour the long-established tradition of wine-making excellence at Nederburg.

Nederburg has a long wine-making history stretching back over 200 years to 1791 when Phillipus Bernadus Wolvaart was granted ownership of 49 hectares of land, in what is now Paarl, by the Dutch East India Company. He called his new property Nederburgh and immediately set about clearing land and planting vines. By 1808 he had planted over 63,000 vines laying the foundations for what was to become the wine company we know today. Nederburg has changed hands many times through the years but was owned by the large South African wine and spirit company, Distell, for many years. Most recently, in 2023, Distell was taken over by Heineken and integrated into Heineken Beverages, a company created by the merger of Distell and Namibia Breweries. Since 2021 the team at Nederburg has been led by cellar master, and seasoned winemaker, Samuel Viljoen. he is ably assisted by winemakers Zinaschke Steyn, Imellia Prins and Jamie Williams. Nederburg remains one of South Africa’s most awarded wineries and their wines display a hallmark combination of fruit and finesse.

The grapes for the Nederburg Winemasters Riesling  were sourced from vineyards in the Darling and Ceres areas. Some of the vines receive supplementary irrigation from a micro-irrigation system while in other instances, fruit was grown under dryland
conditions.  After hand harvest, the fruit was crushed and gently pressed to extract quality juice. Fermentation took place in stainless-steel tanks at 15° to 16ºC. The fermenting wine was put through a centrifuge separator once the desired sugar and alcohol levels were reached.