Tasting Notes
The second ever vintage made of this gorgeous Chardonnay. Fresh, elegant, oaked, limey and delicious - this is very classy and more to the serious side of things. Seelug means Sea Air, and here's how Pieter was inspired. One hot day, during the harvest of ’22, Pieter was sampling a little (as yet) un-named Chardonnay vineyard which a good friend had told him about. Situated on the lower slopes of the Helderberg, it overlooks False Bay. Glancing over towards the ocean that day, Pieter could clearly see that the off-shore wind was blowing. This was good news as the elusive off-shore wind grooms the waves, making them perfect for his local surf spot. But 20 minutes later, as he once again raised his head from his berry-picking, grape-squashing exercise, he glanced over the bay. D’oh! (as Homer Simpson would say) - the wind had turned onshore. He could clearly see the tell-tale "wit perdjies" on the horizon heading towards shore. In a few minutes the perfectly groomed waves would be destroyed. Deflated, he carried on with the task at hand but then it hit him - SEELUG! It suddenly felt like someone was spraying his sun-baked face with a cool, misty oyster extract - a fragrance of fresh, salty, damp bamboo… So whilst the onshore might be wrecking waves, it simultaneously pushes the hot air inland and hugs every Chardonnay plant in that vineyard with a fragranced coolness which not many vines ever experience.
More Info
Every one of Pieter’s wines is a story, rather than a grape variety, and it’s the juice inside the bottle which reveals that story. He doesn’t own any vines, but instead scours South Africa’s winelands for top-quality fruit that has somehow slipped under the radar, now sourcing from nearly 70 sites. Some years he’ll make 20 wines, other years 35. With the benefit of anonymity, variety and regional identity take a back seat while parcel expression does the driving. These are some of South Africa’s most original wines, made by one of South Africa’s most original winemakers