True to our style the Seven Springs Unoaked Chardonnay remains a light wine with clean lines and pure fruit flavors with a typical Overberg minerality. As an unoaked Chardonnay this is quite an aromatic wine, showing floral notes of frangipani, sweet alyssum and even orange blossoms and surprisingly a hint of orange sponge cake. A dynamic palette with a grippy barley apple acidity and wet pebble minerality.
Being a lighter wine it is easily enjoyed as an aperitif or as a “sundowner”, but pairing it with food is a breeze. Serving it at around 10 degrees Centigrade and with ceviche of fish or sushi is a real winner. It also stands up to lightly spicy dishes or soups and is great with chicken salad and a main fish dish.

The 2016 season was preceded by a dry year in 2015, which, we learned with hind-sight was to be the first year of the Western Cape’s three-year drought. The vines were resilient, though yields were down 15% on the previous vintage, with no notable heat-waves experienced until some weeks after harvesting the Chardonnay. Being so high up on the Hemel en Aarde Road means we tend to avert the worst of the heat and rainfall remains fairly consistent, even in ‘dry’ years. 

Technical Analysis