"A very pure, polished style, black currant with lush fig, and blackberry fruit stitched with suave tobacco, roasted vanilla and tar notes. Nice latent depth on the finish. Cabernet Sauvignon, Cabernet Franc, Malbec, Merlot and Petit Verdot." — J.M.

APRIL 30, 2010

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DE TOREN FUSION V 2007 - THE BEST PREMIUM RED WINE FOR THE WORLD CUP 2010

By Peter Keller (Switzerland)

In a week South Africa moves into the focus of football fans. With this in mind (Restaurateur Mark Segmüller, of the Zurich Carlton, James Joyce of Adlisberg, and Peter Keller, wine editor of the "NZZ am Sonntag") tasted 40 different red wines from South Africa, blind and divided them into two categories: affordable wines (Less than Chf 25.00) premium wines (More than Chf 25.00 per bottle).

Conclusion of the tasting:
The winner with the highest score went out of the great Fusion V 2007 De Toren. The name of the ("Tower") is no accident. Fusion V 2007 De Toren: superior blend of Cabernet Sauvignon, Cabernet Franc, Malbec, Merlot and Petit Verdot, complex bouquet of black berries, spicy notes, dense, vigorous, fresh, elegant, long, 18 of 20 points.

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Other recommended wines:

Ken's Wine Guide consolidates professional ratings from eight of the leading wine rating publications and highlights notable wines, restaurants, wineries, places to stay and other wine fun for novices and enthusiasts alike. Enjoy!

2007 De Toren South African (Red Blend) "Fusion V"

Wine Review: This wine is always one of the best red wines coming out of South Africa. The 2007 vintage lives up to that reputation. This very dark purple colored red blend opens with a very pleasant cranberry and boysenberry bouquet. On the palate, this wine is medium bodied, very nicely balanced and fruit forward when first opened. As air permeates the wine, its classic South African oak characteristics start to emerge. On the whole, the flavor profile is a very tasty black raspberry with notes of integrated smoky old oak and a hint of blueberry. The finish is dry and it displays moderate tannins and some blackberry notes as well. This wine will pair well with a NY strip steak from Grill 23.

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De Toren Dinner at The Yale Club
of New York

The Yale Club of New York City is a private club in Midtown Manhattan, New York City. Its membership is restricted almost entirely to alumni and faculty of Yale University, University of Virginia and Dartmouth College. The roots of the club reach back to 1868 and the foundation of the Old Yale Alumni Association of New York. De Toren Private Cellar and Raats family Wines were invited to host a dinner to selected Alumni of the club. Kevin O'Brian the events manager at the club invited members to the dinner and went on to pair the menu to the wines. Together 5 wines were served starting with Raats Chenin Blanc, Raats Cabernet franc, De Toren Z, De Toren Fusion V and Vin de Constance for dessert. The honored guests were suitably impressed with some of South Africa's finest wines. Many of the guests are now planning to come to South Africa for their next holiday.

Blending of Fusion V 2009

We have just completed the blending process for both our 2009 wines. For Fusion V we had 3 blending sessions attended by our distributors, importers, retailers and other wine makers.
The first tasting was held at Le Quartier Francais' Tasting room restaurant. We had the esteemed Margot Janse and our Dutch Sommelier Jaco van Hensbergen as part of the panel. Margot did an excellent job of pairing of our older vintages of Fusion V and Z at the lunch that followed. The initial result from this tasting was rather varied and we forwarded 8 wines from the 15 to the next tasting and made up 3 new blends that resulted from the tasting.

The next tasting was held a week later at Aubergine's new Restaurant Auslese. Auslese is a restaurant specializing in food and wine pairing and Harald Brescherscmidt was our host. This tasting was oversubscribed and Harald and his sommelier tasted separately and we were grateful for their contribution. The menu below was served and worked extremely well with a De Toren Z 2004 showing just what a great wine it is.

Peppered Fillet of Antelope
seared and served with a vinaigrette of springbok
tongue and !Nara oil
Paired with De Toren Z 2004

Beef Rib eye, braised on the bone, black truffle
demi glace (la beryl rouge)
Potato anise seed crêpe, cauliflower mushroom
fondue
Paired with De Toren Fusion V 2002

Trio of Blue Cheese
Soufflé, gratinated figs & filled brioche
Paired with Pyrat Rum

Here the best performing wine from the first tasting, as well as two of the three new blends showed up extremely well. The best 7 wines was forwarded to the final tasting in Johannesburg at the new and fabulous Maximillien Restaurant.

The input of Miguel Chan chief sommelier of the Sun International Group and Jonty van Tonder, sommelier at Maximillien as well as some of our top Gauteng consumers, representatives from the trade and our distributors, culminated in the final decision for Fusion V 2009!

The final blend being chosen as 60% Cabernet Sauvignon, 14% Cabernet franc, 10,5% Merlot, 10.5% Malbec and 7% Petit Verdot. Hopefully we have another 5 star wine on its way!

Z 2009 Blend Finalised

Straight after the blending process for Fusion V we moved onto the final blending of "Z" 2009.
This year for the first time we adopted the same methodology as for Fusion V. Albie put together 8 ideas for the 2009 blend and presented this to a panel at our distributor's offices. Two of the blends stood out head and shoulders above the rest and the panel decided that another possible blend should be tasted by the next panel.
This panel was convened in Durban and was held at Café 1999.
The panel was made up of 2 persons from the on trade, 2 invitees from the off trade, two end consumers, Nicola Jenvey from the Natal Mercury and representatives of our distributors VDP.
Marcell Roberts and her husband Sean did a great job of pairing :

Prawn lollipops and tuna sashimi spoons

Duck terrine with pear and ginger chutney
Carpaccio
Parma ham and tomato Bread
Paired with De Toren "Z" 2004

Pork belly with roasted winter root vegetables,
baby spinach sautéed with pine nuts and sultanas,
rich jus
Paired with De Toren Fusion V 2002

Squashed chocolate soufflé with candied orange
peel
Paired with Orangerie Orange infused Whisky

With amazing consistency the 2 best wines from the first tasting showed best again and this made the final decision very easy.

We can declare that the blend for "Z" 2009 will be 56% Merlot, 24% Cabernet Sauvignon, 14% Cabernet franc, 4% Malbec and 2% Petit Verdot.

Hopefully a 93 point rated wine this year!
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WINE MAKERS REPORT 2010

This year can definitely be described as less is more. With outstanding quality being achieved in a year when Mother Nature was not always as co-operative as we would have hoped for.

The season gave us low crop yields with a lot of infertile shoots, this however gave us the chance to open up the canopies a lot more by removing these shoots, to ensure that all the leaves get direct sunlight during some part of the day and also the grapes were exposed to more sunlight from an early stage of the season. This action definitely had an immense impact on the quality of our grapes.

The grapes as usual were analyzed according to specific "parcels" within a block, which were identified with near-infrared aerial images.

The grapes came in with very good organoleptic properties to be matched with excellent physical analyses. The pips as well as the skin tannins were ripe, the colour is excellent and the pH's and acids were all at very good levels.

Because of the lighter yield we only harvested an average of 4.3 tons a day over the six week period of harvesting. The grapes were carefully handpicked and transported in separate lug crates to the cellar. This process was completed by 9am.

A new addition to the cellar equipment is a cold room where we store the grapes until it gets sorted. The grapes arrive at the cellar at temperatures ranging from 9-12ºC depending on how cold the evening was. With this new addition the grapes gets sorted throughout the day at temperatures of below 15 ºC, meaning less volatile compounds gets degraded due to the heat and less initial microbial activity will take place.

Each bunch/berry goes through no fewer than 23 people stationed along our various vibrating tables and conveyer belts before it reaches the end of the sorting process as whole, single berries, with absolutely no stems or any particles that can cause unripe hard tannins in the wine.

The fermentations went very well, with individual attention given to each of our 14 small open-top fermentors and its grapes. Decisions on how we were to manage the (skin) cap were made on a daily basis while inspecting the fermentation curve and physical state of the skins.

This vintage also allowed us to have long, extended post fermentation macerations, of the wine in contact with the skins, for all the cultivars.

The results, even at this early stage are very good, with lots of concentration and deep, dark fruit aromas very much evident and prominent in the wines. The wines show great depth and have firm, soft tannins, perfect for us, going into the barrels in a few weeks time.

As a team we are extremely excited about this vintage. But I guess the proof will be in the bottle in two years time...

Harvest Report 2010

Weather Conditions:
The 2010 growing season was definitely a big challenge on the viticulture side. A cold, wet spring was characterized by a lot of wind and fluctuation in temperatures, viticulturally we had to pull a few tricks out of the hat after 344mm of rain was recorded from September through to December.
Harvest:
Due to wind conditions and the fluctuation in temperatures during a significant part of the flowering and setting period the fruit set was weaker. This evolved in a natural light crop set and fruit thinning had to be precise to obtain optimal fruit bearing. The phenolic ripeness tests showed excellent analyses and we yet again anticipate an excellent vintage.
Comment from our analysis team:"Malbec: I don't know if the values are right but I double checked, the anthocyanins are the best in the country". Especially in our later cultivars, the ripening period was cool and longer than normal. This resulted in well-ripened grapes with good acids, pH and sugar levels. Moderate day temperatures and cool nights ensured good colours, low sugars and complex flavours.
Pests and Diseases:
Although the threat of fungus disease and mildew was high, our sustainable management program was in place and these issues were well controlled with no impact to nature. To control our Weevil and "Krompokkel" problem we sprayed some Beauveria bassiana fungus on the ground. Beauveria bassiana is a fungus that grows naturally in soils throughout the world and cause diseases in various insects by acting as a parasite. Because we had such a late harvest botrytis (rot) was a problem in our later cultivars. We addressed this by inoculating our vineyards with Thricoderma fungi. Thricoderma has been shown to parasitize other fungi, compete aggressively for nutrients and produce antibiotics.

De Toren at Welt Wein Festival in Vienna, Austria

The heart of the World Wine Festival Wine was the forum where 50 wineries introduced their fine wines between April 22 and 24th. The World Wine Festival was complemented by a program of more than 20 tasting events staging some of the world's most renowned wine connoisseurs. South African Master of Wine Lynne Sherriff, Master Sommelier Frank Kraemmer, Austrian wine journalists and Dr. Michael Pronay, Dr. Viktor Siegl, Willi Klinger, head of the Austrian Wine Marketing Board, and others moderated this year's events.

De Toren was honored to be invited and to rub shoulders with some of the greats like Château Palmer, Château Smith-Haut-Lafitte from Bordeaux, Pol Roger and Billecart Salmon from Champagne, Domaine Méo-Camuzet from Burgundy, and Dr. Loosen and Egon Muller from Germany.

South African Dreams Dinner

The Republic of South Africa was invited this year due to the special interest of the World Cup Football event. Some of South Africa's top wines made a noteworthy statement just prior to this major event kicking off in June.

The lively finale of the World Wine Festival 2010 was staged in the dungeons and other areas of the impressive ensemble basement of the Palais Coburg. Here top chefs like Dirk Grammon of the German cooking scene, Renato Wüst executive chef of the Grand Hotels Bad Ragaz, and Ueli Kellenberger of the Rössli in Bad Ragaz prepared buffet styled stations where their culinary expertise were matched by wines on show.

Secrets of our success

Sustainable farming practices

With a biological approach, being the intermediation of "chemical" and "organic" farming, we ensure sustainable farming for many years to come.

We believe in working with nature and not against it. In studying and understanding all aspects of our terroir we make all our decisions pro to the environment.

With this approach we ensure good and healthy crops at low input costs year after year. Our main focus is to increase the soil's fertility on a continuous basis. With our management plan we increase life-giving organic matter and this ensures a healthy microbial living system in our soils. Due to the healthy soil we minimize diseases and pests and this ensures minimum application of any chemical in the vineyards.

We approach our carbon footprint issues in many ways. By planting cover crops in every row we capture CO2 in the soils. We narrow our rows and do minimal mechanical activations with the smallest equipment possible. All waste materials from the cellar are turned into compost and recycled into the vineyards. We planted hundreds of "Spekbome", renowned for their ability to consume a huge amount of CO2.

One of the scarcest commodities in South Africa is our water resources and irrigation schedules are planned to perfection to obtain full bodied berries and not to waste a drop of water. To have full control over our irrigation and water usage we measure every drop of water that goes through our filters. We even go so far as to recycle to cellar's effluent water and use it in our compost manufacturing.

By Ernest Manuel

Sommeliers Harvest at De Toren

We were extremely fortunate to have two sommeliers doing the 2010 harvest at De Toren.

Neil Dundee hails from the exclusive Volt Restaurant (www.voltrestaurant.com) in Washington D.C. in the U S A.
Here Fusion V is one of only 4 South African Red wines on this extensive list of over 700 wines.

On the other side of the world we have Jaco van Hensbergen, sommelier at the 2 Michelin Star rated Parkheuvel Restaurant based in Rotterdam, The Netherlands (www.parkheuvel.nl). On this list South Africa fairs a little better. Only 400 wines on the list with 20 South African but sporting both De Toren Z and Fusion V.

It is fair to say that these guys could hold their own in our hot summer days. They got up at 5 every morning and worked until late. We learnt a lot from one another!