TOKARA Director’s Reserve Red 2014
The wine has stunning depth of colour. Displaying intense garnet centre and a ruby rim. The nose is shy at first then opens up to a melange of red and black fruits with hints of dried herbs, Eucalyptus, cedar wood and graphite. The wine enters the palate with amazing clarity. The flavours are those of dark cherries, raspberries and black currant. There is a hint of herbal spice on the mid-palate which leads to fine, firm tannins on the finish.

• Alc. Vol %: 14.5%
• Residual Sugar: 2.0g/L
• Total Acidity: 6.1g/L
• p H: 3.59

ORIGIN
This wine is a blend of 67% Cabernet Sauvignon, 16% Merlot, 7% Petit Verdot, 5% Cabernet franc and 5% Malbec. The grapes originated from TOKARA’s premium vineyards on the slopes of the Simonsberg Mountain. CROPPING AND HARVESTING Only grapes from the best blocks and from the best parts of these blocks are used. The average yield is between 5 and 10 t/ha. The grapes were hand picked at optimal ripeness between the 9th March and the 11th April.

WINEMAKING
The grapes were de-stemmed, before passing across a sorting table for the removal of all unwanted material and then crushed directly into tanks for fermentation without the use of pumps. There is first a period of cold maceration for up to 5 days before the fermentation starts spontaneously (without the use of selected yeast strains). The grapes were fermented in stainless steel and wooden upright (foudre) fermenters. Pump-overs, dellastage and punching down of the cap were implemented twice a day for extraction until fermentation was completed. The tanks were given maceration post fermentation if the quality and tannin profile of the wine warranted it. The wines were put to barrel for malolactic fermentation after which they were racked, sulphured and put back to barrel for a further maturation. The wines spent a total of twenty-two months in 57% new French oak - the rest being older French oak barriques. During maturation the wines received five racking’s, all done barrel to barrel. The wine was bottled in January 2014 after a light egg white fining and without filtration. 28 000 bottles were produced.

TASTING NOTES
The wine has stunning depth of colour. Displaying intense garnet centre and a ruby rim. The nose is shy at first then opens up to a melange of red and black fruits with hints of dried herbs, Eucalyptus, cedar wood and graphite. The wine enters the palate with amazing clarity. The flavours are those of dark cherries, raspberries and black currant. There is a hint of herbal spice on the mid-palate which leads to fine, firm tannins on the finish. This wine drinks well now but will benefit from ageing until 2026.

• Food pairing: Veal Osso Bucco or Grilled fillet steak served with red wine sauce, bone marrow, shallots and French fries.