Nederburg Winemasters Chardonnay

Description

Nederburg Winemasters Chardonnay is so named to honour the long-established tradition of winemaking excellence at Nederburg. It is a white wine produced from grapes from the Western Cape.

Nederburg has a long wine-making history stretching back over 200 years to 1791 when Phillipus Bernadus Wolvaart was granted ownership of 49 hectares of land, in what is now Paarl, by the Dutch East India Company. He called his new property Nederburgh and immediately set about clearing land and planting vines. By 1808 he had planted over 63,000 vines laying the foundations for what was to become the wine company we know today. Nederburg has changed hands many times through the years but was owned by the large South African wine and spirit company, Distell, for many years. Most recently, in 2023, Distell was taken over by Heineken and integrated into Heineken Beverages, a company created by the merger of Distell and Namibia Breweries. Since 2021 the team at Nederburg has been led by cellar master, and seasoned winemaker, Samuel Viljoen. he is ably assisted by winemakers Zinaschke Steyn, Imellia Prins and Jamie Williams. Nederburg remains one of South Africa’s most awarded wineries and their wines display a hallmark combination of fruit and finesse.

The grapes for the Nederburg Winemasters Chardonnay are sourced from vineyards in the Durbanville, Stellenbosch, Paarl, Malmesbury and Darling regions. The vines, ranging in age from 10 to 15 years and situated on mostly south to south-westerly facing slopes, received either supplementary or drip irrigation. Grapes are harvested by hand. After settling the clean juice was racked prior to fermentation and inoculated. Once fermentation was under way, approximately 40% of the fermenting juice was transferred to a combination of new and second-fill French oak barrels, where the wine remained on the lees for a period of six months.

From the 2021 vintage, this wine has been labeled as “Winemasters” once more!