Dornier Donatus Red

Vintage:

2007

Origin:

Western Cape

Varieties:

Cabernet Sauvignon (95%), Cabernet franc (5%)

Top 100 South African Wines 2011

90/100 Wine Enthusiast (06)

With our DONATUS, we strive to create a red premium blend showing both a distinctive local character and our individual style. We achieve this with a careful selection of fruit from our healthy vineyards. All wines are fermented and aged in separate batches and skilfully blended after a long ageing process. There are no standard blending components; consistency is always achieved in quality and style. DONATUS offers the best of old world classic concentration and new world boldness.

Tasting Notes:

Vintage conditions where ideal for the grape maturity and resulted in wines with more elegance and poise than those of warmer vintages. Aromas of spice, cassis, tobacco and hints of sweet fruit dominate the complex nose. Characteristics of the vintage conditions are evident on the palate with its full yet firm tannin structure and fresh flavour profile of red fruits with a fresh, lingering finish.

Vintage Conditions:

The season leading up to the harvest period provided excellent conditions for optimal ripeness and flavour concentration. This year the harvest started earlier than expected, 10 days to be exact, however, it ended approximately 10 days later. These longer ripening conditions therefore provided for excellent fruit concentration and elegance.

Fermentation and Ageing:

For this exceptional blend we utilised only two premium vineyards on our property both with outstanding quality of fruit year after year. As we recognised their potential early we were able to maximize our winemaking efforts in order to express the best characteristics of each variety. Cold soaking was followed by a gentle fermentation with pump overs performed twice daily. The grapes remained on the skins for a further two weeks in order to gain complexity and overall tannin structure. Each batch then spent 14 months in 40% New French oak barrels before careful blending.

Food Pairing:

Excellent with rich red meat dishes, slow cooked in a red wine jus.

Alcohol:

14%

Residual Sugar:

2.74 g/L

Total Acid:

5.7 g/L

Final pH:

3.6

VA:

0.5 g/l