‘Break a Leg’

The name of this wine pays tribute to Lukas’ first vintage in 2016. Lukas had to undergo two big knee surgeries in his first harvest and is stylized by the leg in a brace on the label and the silhouette of the man plotting his next move. With the help of great friends and family it all came together in the end and this wine is a celebration of hard times that you have to overcome and to never give up. In the same way one wishes a performer to “break a leg”, the name celebrates all the hard work to achieve said goals. The protea on the stamp emphasizes his South African heritage while the tortoise symbolizes the speed at which Lukas was able to work during that first harvest. The donkey shown is a tongue in cheek reminder of how stubborn Lukas was in not compromising on doing any of the work himself despite not being as mobile as he would have liked to be. The fruit for this wine is farmed and harvested purely for this bottling and not for ‘Geronimo’, nor anyone else’s Cinsaut and Lukas feels this is paramount in order to retain the fresh quality of the wine. The 2022 bottling saw the switch from the blending grape being Pinotage to Grenache, which adds a bit more up-front fruitiness to this wine.

The Cinsaut grapes come from vines planted in 1992 on decomposed granite soils in the Faure region of Stellenbosch, in close proximity to the ocean and with a constant sea breeze.  Grapes were picked on three different dates. The first pick ensures that the final blend always end up with great acidity and a low pH. Cinsaut isn’t normally known for low pH’s or high acidities. The last, ripest pick was fermented in stainless steel tanks. All grapes were destemmed and lightly pressed to extract juice and a light color without extracting too much tannin.  Juice was left overnight to settle in a stainless steel tank without any settling enzymes.  About 65% was then transferred to stainless steel tanks and the remainder went to old French foudres to ferment naturally, including natural malolactic fermentation. The wines spent 8 months in their fermentation vessels before blending and bottling.  Unfined, lightly filtered, and a small addition of sulfur.