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Now Viewing: Scali
On to the wines of Tania and Willi de Waal (above), with their boutique Scali operation. They’re fifth generation grape growers on the Schoone Ord farm in Paardeberg. They began making wine in 1993, with just 50 litres; in 1997 they made a whole barrel of Pinotage, and in 1999 they scaled up to 20 barrels, which I guess you could say is their first proper vintage. The name Scali comes from the Afrikaans for shale, the predominant soil type here. As well as making Pinotage, they also produce a Syrah. Winemaking is as simple as it comes here; most of the effort takes place in the vineyard to get the grapes just right. The grapes are harvested into 10 kg crates, cooled overnight, crushed and destemmed into open fermenters, and then given a week’s prefermentation maceration at low temperatures with a carbon dioxide blanket. Fermentation is natural or inoculated, with regular pigeage, with some post-ferment maceration. The wine is then basket pressed into barriques where the malolactic fermentation completes. Tasting the Scali wines was a bit of an eye-opener for me. It’s not just that they’re very good; it was also that this was the first time I’ve tried a Pinotage that I’ve really liked. I admit it, I’d become biased against this grape. I’ve drunk a lot of Pinotage, and I’ve tried as hard as possible to keep an open mind about it. But a succession of disappointments had led me to question whether there was any merit in this grape at all, other than for making large volumes of gluggable, plummy, juicy inexpensive quaffing wine.
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