Rainbow's End

Dear Readers,
There has been a long silence from us as everyone on Rainbow’s End has simply been too busy to write.
Our season went off well with no freaky weather patterns to cause any disasters. We did have a very late cool season because of more rain than usual during January, February and March, and only harvested our last Cabernet Sauvignon on the 14th April. The cool, slow, ripening conditions ensured very good phenolic ripeness. The wine is now in the barrels and busy with malolactic fermentation. So far so good!
Besides exporting to Sweden, we are now also exporting to the Netherlands and Germany, and this season have pushed up production to 15 500 bottles. All our ‘ 06 wines are sold out except for a few remaining cases of ‘ 06 Shiraz and ‘ 04 Complexite. The ‘ 07 wines show great promise and we are all waiting excitedly for their release in June.
In the vineyards, because of the relatively high rainfall through the summer season, Francois had a difficult but successful time keeping them healthy and free from disease and rot. Thorough canopy management and opening of the grape bunches, (the latter particularly important to keep the Shiraz with it’s thinner skin free from rot), did the trick!
At the end of April the sowing of the cover crop was completed. (It keeps most of the weeds out of the vineyards and minimizes the spraying of anti-weed killers. It also helps to prevent erosion on our steep slopes, and replaces organic material in the soil. ) We are proud of the fact that our soils have remained so healthy and fertile, and thanks to these sustainable farming practises, it has not been necessary to add any artificial fertilizer !
 
During the past year we discovered a new, cheap, environment friendly way of keeping the birds away from the grapes: hanging empty CD cassettes in the vineyards! They flash different coloured lights in the breeze and the sunlight. The baboons we have here in the surrounding mountains were however not frightened away and still have fun sampling our Merlot! We have sighted the lone leopard living in this mountainous area and for the first time saw leopard spoor near our highest vineyards. (Perhaps the leopard will take care of the baboons for us!) The name Banghoek, ‘scary corner’, remains descriptive of this area!
At present the labour are enjoying their well earned three weeks leave, the winter rains have begun and soon the early pruning will start.
That’s all for now, happy drinking, the Malan Team.   

This entry was posted on Monday, May 26th, 2008 at 8:52 pm and is filed under Latest News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.