Kershaw Wines G.P.S. Series Lower Duivenhoks River Chardonnay 2021
£41.95
The wine
A restrained, mineral and fresh Chardonnay with lemon blossom and wet chalk aromas leading to a penetratingly intense palate with bright acidity balancing the rich mid-palate weight. Notes of orange peel, peach and grapefruit peel are layered with lemon cream biscuits through to a long finish.
The G.P.S. Series maps single sites across the cool Cape rather than blending them. The Lower Duivenhoks River lies inland from the south coast near Heidelberg, a marginal spot for Chardonnay where slow ripening preserves acidity and gives the wine its tension. Whole-bunch pressed, wild fermented and aged in French oak, with only a small proportion new.
The producer
Kershaw Wines
View all Kershaw Wines winesRichard Kershaw was born in Sheffield and trained as a chef before wine took over. He travelled widely, settled in South Africa in 1999, and by 2009 was Group Winemaker at Mulderbosch and Kanu. He passed the Master of Wine examination in 2011 and founded Kershaw Wines the following year, making him one of very few MWs anywhere who make wine of their own.
The project is unusually methodical. Kershaw works clone by clone and site by site, in tiny quantities, across the cool corners of the Cape. The Clonal Selection wines come from Elgin, an upland apple-growing valley whose altitude and Atlantic influence make it one of the coolest viticultural areas in the country. The G.P.S. Series maps individual sites further afield, and the Deconstructed wines go further still, isolating a single clone on a single soil type.
That last point matters when choosing a bottle: a Deconstructed wine names both the clone and the geology, so SH22 on Bokkeveld shale is a specific thing, not a house style. Production is small and demand consistently exceeds it.
