David & Nadia Skaliekop 2022

David and Nadia Sadie farm in Swartland, in South Africa's Coastal Region, a warm, dry area of old bush vines that has become a benchmark for Chenin Blanc. Skaliekop is a single-vineyard wine from the Paardeberg, where the soils are decomposed schist and granite, poor and free-draining, forcing the vines to work hard and giving the wine its mineral cut and salinity. The old dry-farmed vines yield small crops of concentrated fruit, and the Mediterranean climate with its cool Atlantic influence holds acidity in the grapes. The wine is fermented with native yeasts and aged eleven months in barrel, mostly older oak, so the wood shapes texture through slow lees contact rather than adding overt oak flavour. The colour is silvery yellow. The nose is restrained and mineral, with lemon, white peach and a beeswax, honeyed note. The palate is dry and textured, the citrus and orchard fruit set against a firm, stony line and a long, saline finish. At 12.5 per cent it stays fresh and precise. Serve at 11 to 12 degrees in a large glass.