ao Speciosa 2006
“Thank goodness! Another good weather year, plus available irrigation and the introduction of “coccidoxenoides perminutes” for mealy bug control saw the vineyards returning to health. Bernhard auctioned his first CWG wines. The Deli and Event facility was built below the cellar and Cassia was put on the planning board. Henriette joined us on the marketing side. Nitida joined the World Wide Web. The Durbanville Water Pipeline was completed. On the wine side, we bought our own labelling line, our experimental white blend went back in to wood after blending and we picked a tiny crop off the new Cabernet block. Woolworths released the first Nitida Sauvignon Blanc Limited Release.”
Tasting Notes
This is a wine for lovers of classic and refined elegance. A unique wine where you find the full dark mulberry and cherry fruits cohabiting with the lighter raspberries and red currents. A whole wine, showing lovely, but not over-powering dark chocolate and caramel and firm tannic structure. Stunning on its own but especially good with lamb and mint sauce or a good veal concoction.
Winemaker Comments
When we were monitoring our barrels of the wine earmarked for the 2006 Calligraphy we came across some stunnning barrels of Cabernet Franc and Merlot from the grapes that we had bought in from Altydgedacht. We believed these barrels deserved some special attention. At the same time we are also very careful not to take the heart out of the Calligraphy soo we chose only very small quantities - 4 barrels of Merlot and 3 of Cabernet Franc , and added a barrel of Cabernet Sauvignon to fill out the mouthfeel. The result is to make just 200 cases of what we believe to be an exceptional blend. All the wine came out of new barrels - this is the first time we at Nitida have bottled a wine that was aged 100% in new wood. We always insist on making wines that show elegance above the brashness often exhibited by wines that have been so aged. In this case however, the complexity of the fruit and tannins allowed the wood to become fully integrated so that it in no way distracts from the wine's elegance.
