Absolut Mandarin

The 2017 harvest season will be remembered as the drought season. At Ernie Els Wines, we are very blessed to have bountiful water on the Helderberg. We were however still careful with our water use during the summer months leading up to harvest. We’ve also been working hard to adapt our viticultural techniques during the past 3 years to help the vineyards cope optimally with the heat and limited irrigation. The drought was further buffered by a surprisingly and fancifully cooler season. Due to the somewhat buffered circumstances the vines reacted gracefully to the drought with no abnormal growth patterns observed. Vine canopies were kept nice and thin for sunlight of course less leaves means less water needed. Vines are resilient plants and their natural instinct in drier years is to produce smaller bunches with smaller berries. Small berries are usually the start of a great wine and 2018 was no different. The white wines from the 2017 vintage appear to have great vintage specific concentration.