The Stables Wine Estate Media Release

 No: Stables0708

23 March 2007

Durban - With the Sharks riding high at the top of the Super 14 log, the Durban based team entrenched it’s legacy by creating a unique red wine in a “players crush”.

Several hundred kilograms of premium Cabernet Sauvignon grapes were harvested from The Stables Wine Estate’s vineyards, and rushed to the ABSA stadium, where a number of the team’s star players were on standby for the “crush” grape stomping session.

Led by their skipper John Smit, AJ Venter, Percy Montgomery, Butch James and Bob Skinstad all got involved in stomping the grapes to produce the juice that will eventually become prime Cabernet Sauvignon wine.

Winemaker Tiny Van Niekerk was meticulous in his preparation, and sterilized the destalker, vats and crushing caskets used for the stomping session, as well as insisting that the players carefully wash their feet in a special sanitising solution.

Once the players had stomped most of the juice out of the grapes, Van Niekerk and his viticulturalist Diederick Le Grange got to work preparing the juice for fermentation, and adding the French yeast used in the process, before the wine goes into French oak barrels.

“The grapes are terrific,” said Van Niekerk. “Small, intensely flavoured berries that promise an exciting Cabernet Sauvignon. This special crush will be called “The Captain’s Crush”, unless the Sharks win the Super 14, then we will have to call it “The Champions Crush” instead,” he added.

With a lengthy maturation in oak barrels on the cards for the Cabernet Sauvignon, the wine will only be released in the latter part of 2008.

The Sharks Crush coincides with the release of three wines from the Stables under a Sharks label, a predominantly Pinotage blend called Raggie Red, a Chardonnay and Sauvignon Blanc blend called Silver Tip, and the benchmark Blanc de Noir from the Estate entitled Zambezi Pink.

The Stables Wine Estate has also stated an annual public Wine Crushing festival, as a celebration of the end of their summer harvest, which will yield a full range of KZN Wines or Origin, many of them the first wines certified to have come from the province.

The Crushing Festival includes an evening with Acoustic guitar supremo Tony Cox on Friday 30 March, with the Wine Crush taking place at The Stables on Saturday 31 March. On Sunday 1 April Skye restaurant at Forduin hotel outside Nottingham Road will host a designer lunch carefully paired with Stables wines.

Entry to the Crush costs R60, and each participant will receive a Stables T-shirt.

For more information please contact Judy on 033 266 6781 or by email on info@stableswine.co.za

ENDS

Dave Macleod/
Gameplan Media

Dave Macleod/
Gameplan Media

Dave Macleod/
Gameplan Media