Meet the Winemaker

Daniel Roux

Stilwater Vineyards · Elgin · Chardonnay & Riesling

“Cool climate is not a style. It is a discipline.”

The interview

Why do you pick at night?

Fruit comes into the cellar at eight degrees. No oxidation, no need to chill, and the aromatics stay in the wine instead of the atmosphere.

Cloud. We sit under a marine cloud for weeks in summer. It slows ripening down so the flavour catches up with the sugar.

A dry Riesling from a neighbour, ten years old, still electric. It convinced me to plant a hectare the following winter.

“Cool climate is not a style. It is a discipline.”

The vineyard

Seven hectares on a north-facing shoulder at 300 metres, surrounded by apple orchards that were here long before the vines.

The cellar

Whole-bunch pressed, settled cold, fermented in 500-litre puncheons and left on the gross lees until spring.

Photography

Klipkop Wines · Hemel-en-Aarde

Twenty-two harvests on the same clay-and-shale ridge, and she still walks every row before she picks.

Bothashoek Estate · Bot River

From cellar hand to cellarmaster in a decade, making some of the most honest Syrah in the Overberg.