Angus Paul Chenin Blanc 2023 ‘Barbary Fictions’

Angus Paul Chenin Blanc ‘Barbary Fictions’

Kleur: geel met een gouden gloed
Geur: open en mineraal, citrus, vers gesneden appel, lemongrass
Smaak: intrigerend, aanzet met een bite, dan heel rond en balans. Veel lengte.
Houdbaar: op dronk, minimaal houdbaar tot eind 2028
Lekker bij: stevige visgerechten (corvina of tonijn), zeebaars, viscurry, pittige vega gerechten, belegen kazen

Angus:
The nose is rich in lemongrass, cut apple and yellow citrus. It has more of a deeper, heavier rumble than the high pitch of the Chenins that come from the other side of the Bottelary hill formation (those that face Flase Bay). The palate is crunchy like biting into an apple.
Despite this, it is a round wine, with the freshness and breadth tugging each other in equal balanced directions.

WINEMAKING
Hailing from a 1972 planted, ragged, hilltop vineyard in the Bottelary ward around 300 meters above sea level, on Mooiplaas farm. This vineyard faces northwest, but luckily cool winds from Table Bay blow up through the valleys, through the fynbos that surrounds this old block and through the vines themselves. This vineyard moves slowly and requires patience in harvest time to capture at its best moment.

Grapes are hand picked and cooled overnight. The following morning they are put into the press and pressed as whole bunches. No sulphur, yeast, acid, enzymes or water were added. Very cloudy juice was transferred to neutral oak barrels, with only the heaviest of solids left behind. Fermentation took place over 4 weeks, after which about half of the barrels completed malolactic fermentation. In Autumn wines were sulphured for the first time. Wines were bottled in December after having spent 11 months in barrel with no racking or fining.

THE NAME
A prickly pear grows in this old vineyard, often referred to as a Barbary fig, ficus or fiction.
A barbary fiction: tales formed by the mariners of the age of exploration created a mystique about the terrifying places that lay beyond the edge of maps. These tales served to ‘make sense of’ and overcome the fear and danger of these new, shrouded places, often by contorting them into the incomprehensible.

Tim Atkin 93/100
Sourced from a block on the Mooiplaas Farm in the Bottlelary Hills that takes “ages to ripen”, according to Angus Paul, this is the most substantial of his three Chenin Blancs. Showing old-vine concentration, it has layers of saffron, nutmeg, stone fruit and dried honey and a stony, flinty finish. Smart stuff. 2024-30

WineMag 93/100 
From a Bottelary vineyard of Chenin Blanc planted in 1972. The nose is currently shy – some reduction as well as citrus and peach before a palate that’s particularly taut and “nervy” – good concentration, bright acidity and a savoury finish. Shows great refinement. Alc: 13%.

Platter’s: ****(*) 93/100 
Chenin from a cool, 1972 Bottelary hilltop vineyard. 2022 rounder, showing more yellow peachy fruit, less bracing than Flight version; but also a fine acidity, here rather lemony, with a stony & savoury quality on its lengthy finish.