Kanonkop

Hey red wine lovers - you want a real treat?  Check out the Kanonkop Kadette Cape Red Blend from Stellenbosch, South Africa.  Whether it's a versatile dinner wine you need or just an anytime red, this is it.  The blend is a sixty percent Bordeaux blend of Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot, Cabernet Franc and Petit Verdot + forty percent Pinotage, the signature grape of that country.  And whoever thought of this mix nailed it big time.

Now ordinarily I would start cribbing from a half dozen wine industry websites to fill out the text of this post but after going to www.kanonkop.co.za, I got more information there than I could possibly use here.  This is the best winery website I have seen.  Please, everyone, check it out and see what is possible if a company wants to share their business with an interested audience.  In particular, the Viticulture and Winemaking headings are where you want to be for getting a toehold on what they're doing.  

My takeaway from the experience? The two headings above show an expansive understanding of the importance of vintages.  The winemakers don't just take what the vineyard gives them at harvest time and make a wine out of it.  Well, they do...but their intention is to capture the unique expression of a harvest.  That starts with the old school, tried and true hand-picking of grapes.  Then, using modern technology, evaluating for sugar content in the juice and tannin content in the skins and making sure the acids balance with the sugars and that the pips are not green.  Now, just to be sure, lets restate the intention - They want to do everything in their power to capture the unique expression of the vintage.

Classy!