Feathers in winery's cap
2009-01-08
THE Vilafonté winery’s success has reached unprecedented heights, as the luxury wine brand adds two proverbial feathers to their cap in 2008. The winery’s inaugural five star Platter rating for their Vilafonté Series C 2006 follows hot-on-the-heels of Vilafonté’s nomination for ‘New World Winery of the Year’ by influential American wine- and lifestyle magazine, Wine Enthusiast. Both of these accolades set a benchmark of excellence, and to be lauded with both local and international acclaim in an over-traded market, riddled with fierce competitors, is indeed noteworthy and cause for celebration. The Platter Wine Guide is South Africa’s original and consistently best-selling wine annual and is the definitive directory of who’s who and what’s what in South African wine. Vilafonté Vineyards is one of only five nominees for Wine Enthusiast’s ‘New World Winery of the Year’ award. In the 15 years of this competition’s existence, there have only been three South African nominees ever, with Vilafonté nominated twice (in 2005 and 2008), making them the only South African winery to have received two nominations to date. The winner will be announced towards the end of January 2009. Overseer of wine-making at Vilafonté, the internationally acclaimed icon, Zelma Long, expressed her delight over the Platter award and the New World Winery of the Year nomination: “These accolades reinforce our commitment to the Vilafonté initiative and philosophy: to create wines that best reflect their origin, that is, the site and soils of the Vilafonté Vineyard, not dissimilar to the manner in which children resemble parents because of the salient DNA structure passed on. “We are thrilled that Vilafonté is firmly entrenching itself as a leading luxury brand both locally and globally”. Vilafonté is the first South African and American joint winemaking venture which focuses exclusively on the production of the ultimate quality red wines. This ground-breaking project is the brainchild of US wine gurus Zelma Long, the Grande Dame of Californian wine-making, and viticulturist husband, Dr Phil Freese, both Robert Mondavi alumni. The couple planted their first vineyard blocks in 1997, after which, the duo joined forces with the multi-talented Mike Ratcliffe, Warwick Wine Estate proprietor, and marketing aficionado. And, in 2003, Vilafonté was born. The all-red Vilafonté vineyards are located in the Paarl-Simonsberg region on the northern side of the Simonsberg Mountains. The name ‘Vilafonté’ is derived from its namesake, a unique and ancient soil type comprised of moist clay and drainable pebble, found on this property, the texture of which is reflected on the label. Planted to cabernet sauvignon, cabernet franc, merlot and malbec, the variation between blocks - coupled with the team’s philosophy and desire to produce wines that best reflect the soil and vineyards from which they originated - encouraged them to produce two impressive wines.
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