Expanding Your Wine Horizons

It’s fair to say that the sheer choice of white wines available nowadays can be a little bewildering, especially when you have entire shops devoted just to wines from all over the world. How on earth do you choose from all these great wine offers? Well, as seasoned wine drinkers will know, it’s a good idea to start with what you like. Knowing a little about your favourite type of wine’s origin will assist you in finding other wines that you might also enjoy. Let’s say, for example, that you found a South African Chardonnay particularly to your liking. Why not try a few other types of South African wine to broaden your wine drinking horizons a little?

Premier Estates Wine’s South African Range

Our wine production team are forever on the lookout for the best quality grapes from both emerging and well established vineyards all over the world. Our discovery range includes three South African Wines and each of them is a multi-award winning wine having received approval from some of the world’s foremost wine experts at the Decanter Wine Awards, the International Wine and Spirit Competition (IWSC) and the International Wine Challenge (IWC). The many hundreds of comments and reviews on our website submitted by our customers, suggests that wine drinkers are most certainly influenced by a wine award from a prestigious organisation and we would certainly agree that it’s a good place to start looking for wine offers on products that you believe you will enjoy.

Let’s take a look at where exactly our South African wines come from and how they are made:

Premier Estates South African Chenin Blanc White Wine

Most wines are named after the type of grape that they are made from. Chenin Blanc grapes are grown in many of the New World regions and are an incredibly versatile grape, coming from a hardy vine that can be grown in almost all conditions and soil types. They were among the first types of grape to be grown for wine production in South Africa, with a history dating back to the 17^th century. We source our grapes from the Western Cape region of South Africa which has some of the world’s most famous and beautiful vineyards. The area has an amazingly diverse range of climates and topology and the winemaker’s huge wealth of experience means that grapes of truly outstanding quality can be guaranteed year on year.

Our Chenin Blanc has a sublime citrus acidity characteristic of this particular grape, with a fantastically crisp finish. Our wine undergoes the fermentation process in state-of-the-art temperature controlled vessels. Carefully controlled cooler fermentation temperatures bring out the amazing tropical fruit flavours associated with our Chenin Blanc. It pairs splendidly with Asian cuisine and subtly flavoured white meats with sauce accompaniments such as pork and apple sauce.

Premier Estates South African Pinotage Red Wine

The Pinotage grape variety was created in South Africa in 1925 by Abraham Izak Perold. He was experimenting with blending the hardy hermitage vine and pinot noir vine, which can be a little more difficult to grow without optimal conditions. It gained recognition in the late 50s and has been refined and perfected over the last 6 decades to produce some of South Africa’s most respected and individual red wines. The high tannin level of Pinotage wines and its deep, dark berry fruit flavours and aromas set this red wine apart from more traditional Shiraz and Cabernet Sauvignon reds and make it an easily distinguishable wine.

Limited oak barrel exposure eliminates many of the negative characteristics associated with this grape variety and long, cool fermentation periods minimize the volatile esters which can produce overpowering aromas in red wine.

Our particular South African Pinotage pairs amazingly well with spicy curries or chilli con carne which benefit enormously from the contrasting rich, fruity sweetness and full body of this wine.

Premier Estates South African Shiraz Rosé

Rosé wines are produced by allowing the skins of red grapes to remain in contact with the grape must for a limited amount of time, just enough to impart some of the skin colour and  associated rosé wine characteristics. The Shiraz grape variety is historically linked to the Iranian city of the same name and were originally used to make white wines. The grape has been grown all over the world for many hundreds of years and modern Shiraz wines are usually full bodied, tannin rich red wines.

Shiraz grapes lend themselves nicely to the production of rosé wines and the Premier Estates team are able to produce a wine with beautiful summer fruit flavours and aromas. Strawberries and redcurrants aplenty with this one and there are few things in life more pleasant and indulgent than opening a nicely chilled bottle of our South African Shiraz rosé on a warm summer’s day in the garden.

Our Shiraz rosé complements salmon and light pasta dishes very well indeed and is equally as pleasant as an aperitif or with a sweet, light dessert.

Hopefully, we’ve managed to pique your interest with a little more background information about our South African wines and if you’re looking to expand your experience of new world wines you could certainly benefit from sampling some of the wine world’s more individual varietals. Our online wine offers apply to all the wines on our website so you can also benefit from great deals as well as fantastic wine.

Please feel free to leave comments about our South African varietals on our facebook or twitter pages. We’d love to know what you think. Happy sampling!