Meet the Winemaker
Marieke van der Walt
Klipkop Wines · Hemel-en-Aarde · Pinot Noir
“You cannot rush a slope. The vineyard decides, we just listen.”
The interview
What does this ridge give you that nowhere else does?
Cold mornings off the bay and clay that holds water without drowning the vine. It makes a Pinot Noir with red fruit and a savoury edge that you simply cannot manufacture in a warmer place.
How has your winemaking changed?
I intervene less every year. Whole bunch where the stems are ripe, older oak, longer time on the lees. The wine is more itself and less me.
What should a visitor understand before they taste?
That the wine in the glass is a record of a specific year. Look at the hills first, then taste. It suddenly makes sense.
“You cannot rush a slope. The vineyard decides, we just listen.”
The vineyard
Fourteen hectares planted between 180 and 320 metres, all dry-farmed except the youngest block. The oldest Pinot Noir was planted in 2001 on decomposed shale.
The cellar
A small gravity-fed cellar built into the slope. Open-top fermenters, foot punch-downs during peak fermentation and a single old basket press.
Photography
