Wildeberg, Apply Within Chenin Blanc

Immediate notes of bright citrus and pear, it's only as the wine develops on the palate that the pithier side from the skin ferment portion begins to shine through.

Notes from the vineyard
The journey to putting this wine in bottle is a slightly convoluted one which starts back in 2019!

Just before the pandemic we’d conceived, blended and bottled a Chenin Blanc with a small percentage of skin-ferment fruit – we were just about to name and label the wine when a mystery visitor to Wildeberg made an offer on the whole lot and just like that it was gone! We were already extremely excited by the skin-ferment portion of that 2019 blend, so much so that in 2020 we made the wine 100% skin ferment, that liquid became WIT (more on that in a second). We’ve always had that original 2019 blend in the back of our minds though, and here we are now, having gone full circle, finally launching the wine that was always meant to be the genesis point of our project with Wildeberg. 

The 2023 version stays true to the original blend, it’s mostly (68%) an early picked, beautifully bright and saline parcel of Eenzaamheid Chenin Blanc, complemented by a second, later picking from the same plot to add a touch of ripeness and depth. The life-giving electricity jolt comes in the form of a ceramic egg’s worth (20% of the final blend) of WIT – providing just the right amount of grapefruit twang. On paper, the process and the blend may sound slightly Frankenstein but the resulting wine is incredibly ‘together’, whisper it quietly but it’s smartly commercial, nicely laid-back but with enough mineral-flecked energy to effortlessly keep ‘em coming back for more. We were blown away by the feedback we got on the wine during our February tastings with some well renowned palates sharing some very kind words – we’re just sorry it’s taken so long to reach these shores.