Winemaking
Tradition, obsessively kept
“Wine is sunlight, held together by water.” — Galileo Galilei
Winemaking
“Wine is sunlight, held together by water.” — Galileo Galilei
No year in the vineyard is the same. Our task in the cellar is not to impose a style, but to capture each vintage's character — its climate, its season, its ecology — with methods that have barely changed in half a century, guided by technology that has.
The Journey
Pinotage ripens first, in February; Merlot, Cabernet Franc and Cabernet Sauvignon follow by mid-March. Every bunch is picked by hand into 18 kg lug boxes so no berry is crushed before its time.
Whole bunches are de-stalked, then berries pass a sorting machine, a vibrating table and finally a camera-guided optical sorter — only perfect fruit reaches the fermenters.
Crushed berries ferment in traditional open-top concrete kuipe of 10 tons — punched down by hand every two hours, day and night, with floor coolers holding the cap below 29 °C. Pinotage spends 3 days on the skins; the Cabernet varieties 5–6.
Two to three months of secondary fermentation soften the young wines before they go to wood.
Maturation in 225-litre French oak barriques — 12 months in seasoned oak for Kadette wines, 18–24 months in new oak for the Estate Range. More than 5 000 barrels rest on-site at any time.
Every bottle is filled, labelled and packed on the farm — provenance guaranteed from vine to case.
Sustainability
Heritage means nothing if it isn't handed on. Kanonkop pairs old-world method with responsible modern farming.
