This wine takes its inspiration from Lukas’ youth in Rawsonville and conquering fears and taking that leap of faith diving from a cliff into a swimming hole. This is akin in some ways to a bird watching its siblings finally take that leap from the nest to fly for the first time. It was this parallel that defined this wine as Lukas finally following his dream and leaving the comfort of the employee/paycheck world to take the risk and shouting ‘Geronimo!’ when feeling that feeling of soaring freedom. 2020 was a return to this wine coming from the Bredell-farmed ‘Rustenhof Vineyard’ in southern Stellenbosch.

The bushvine fruit was hand-harvested and left fully intact and were fermented roughly 40% whole-bunch in in open-top stainless-steel one-ton fermenters. The only addition to the fermentations were Lukas’ hands as he performed daily punchdowns each morning over the course of the first four days, then daily pumpovers over the next ten. The lots were basket-pressed with the gross lees to old 500L French oak barrels. Malolactic fermentation occurred naturally and after nine months of aging, the barrels were blended to tank to settle. The Cinsaut is bottled earlier than the other reds in order to maintain the piquant, crunchy fruit vibrancy unique to Cinsaut (when picked at the optimum time). The wine was bottled without fining or filtration and just a small addition of sulfur.