Winemakers expected the worst but were surprised to find harvest 2018 to provide some of the best wines in memory.
This is according to Jaco Potgieter, winemaker at Douglas Green, who has been particularly blown away by the white wines this year. “The white wines are some of the best I’ve ever tasted,” says Jaco. “From the flavours to the mouthfeel and texture, harvest 2018 really surprised us all.”
Chardonnay and Chenin Blanc are frontrunners in this observation, with these varieties showing phenomenal quality across the board.
Harvest 2018 was expected to be a challenging vintage, due to the Western Cape suffering from the worst drought in decades. Jaco says that although these challenges resulted in über-concentrated flavours and intensity, these positives proved to put winemakers’ skills to the test: “Thicker skins resulted in less juice and overall volume. We had to work exceedingly careful to ensure we really extracted every drop of sap, and not too much tannin in turn” – especially since the Douglas Green winemaking team strives for easy drinking wines from the moment it is bottled.
Douglas Green is also known as a brand that delivers high-quality wine at affordable prices, and according to Jaco this year particularly favours this mandate: “Consumers will definitely not be disappointed if they buy a Douglas Green with vintage 2018 on the label. They will be pleased to find high-quality wine at a very good price,” hinted Jaco.
