As red winemaker at Nederburg, Samuel Viljoen has had his hands full in the past few weeks.

“2020 Harvest has been challenging with a lot of cultivars being ripe at the same time. This made intake a bit of a juggling act. We had three weeks of peak intake and all the cellar staff had to pull together to ensure intake can continue. Colours are looking dark on the reds with full ripe flavours thus far,” explains Samuel.

For Nederburg, as it stands, the cellar has collected an impressive 7111 tonnes of red varieties, with 6338 tonnes of white. They are still one week away from harvest finishing, but as with fellow wineries, they are almost at the finish line. In terms of difficulties, the main challenge for Samuel and the team are the new changes to the cellar.

“We have updated our cellar and are using it for the first time this year. So we had to make some improvements as we went along. With each challenge, there have come new innovations and we managed to keep the intake flowing.” adds Samuel.

With the current threat of a pandemic, Samuel maintains that the cellar environment is continually kept sterile and that everyone has been instructed to follow protocol and wash hands regularly.

We wish the Nederburg wine team all the best as they wrap up another successful harvest!