Olifantsberg The Lark Chenin Blanc 2024
£18.25
The wine
Clean-cut freshness with a good balance of fresh stone fruit and bright citrus notes on a fleshy, textured palate with engaging length. Elegant and refined.
The Lark is the more ambitious of the two Chenins, from selected parcels and given time in oak. Chenin is one of the few white grapes that can take barrel ageing without losing its identity, because its naturally high acidity carries the weight. Altitude on the mountainside is what preserves that acidity in a hot inland valley.
The producer
Olifantsberg
View all Olifantsberg winesOlifantsberg lies on the slopes of the Elephant Mountain in the Breedekloof, an inland valley in the Western Cape that has long supplied fruit to others and only recently begun making its name in its own right.
The estate's holdings climb the mountainside on decomposed shale and sandstone, and altitude is what makes the site work: the Breedekloof floor is hot, but these vineyards sit high enough to catch cooler air and hold their acidity. Winemaker Elizma Visser has built the range around Rhone varieties and old-vine Chenin Blanc, which is an unusual combination and a well-judged one for this ground.
South Africa's old Chenin plantings are among its greatest assets, dry-farmed bush vines that crop very little and give real concentration, and the Cape has more Chenin than the Loire itself. The Soul of the Mountain wines are the flagship pair, named The Matriarch and The Bull, and they are made only in vintages that warrant them.
