Tin Soldier 2025
Sauvignon blanc
Tasting Notes
Tin Soldier is a partially skin-fermented wine made from Semillon gris, which is almost unique to South Africa, and a vestige of a time when Semillon was one of the grapes on which the South African wine industry was built. The vineyard has been established from a sélection massale of Semillon gris cuttings taken from an adjacent vineyard of Semillon that was planted in 1963.
The colour of the wine is unusual, having taken some bright copper tones from about a week’s fermentation on skins.
The interplay between savoury and sweet is a key point of interest in Tin Soldier, and makes for a subtle and engaging wine. The wine shows complex aromas of nutmeg, mandarin peel and dried apricots on the nose, while the palate is led by ripe quince, red apple skin and litchi before a rounder, oatmeal-like creaminess. A tangy, blood orange zest acidity cuts into that opulent palate for a grippy, crunchy finish.
Nuts & Bolts
Semillon gris – Swartland, 12 years old – granite sands
Residual sugar – 2.1 g/L
Total acidity – 5.8 g/L
pH 3.26
About The Wine
At one point I was worried that the 2025 vintage was a little too picture perfect and possibly lacking a bit of edge and interest. Looking at them in bottle now, it’s easy to dismiss this worry. They are beautifully framed, concentrated and elegant. The cool, dry 2025 growing season allowed for long, slow ripening, producing ripe wines with pristine acidities. It’s really exciting for us to be able to capture such a wonderful season in bottle.
With Tin Soldier we really play on the grippy salinity that we get from the Paardeberg soils. Roughly 50% of the grapes are directly pressed and the juice fermented in old oak barrels. The other half undergoes a short skin-fermentation of about 7-10 days in open vats to bring out some of that silky tannin and blood orange character. Later in the year we play a little with these blending components to get the texture and weight of the wine just right. The interplay of fruit and aromatic lift from the direct pressed wines, and the savoury tones from the skin-fermentation is key to this wine’s appeal.
If we go back 100 years, Semillon was responsible for probably 90% of the wine made in this country. Tim James’ research on the variety suggests that the red mutation may at one time have been even more common than the white. I’m really fascinated by the idea of the kind of wines that would have been made in the old days using these mixed vineyards, and we’ve embraced a more old school approach of fermenting the grapes on their skins for a few days to bring out more of the colour and texture of this wonderful grape.
All of our wines take their names from archetypal childrens’ toys, and Tin Soldier takes its name from Semillon’s status as the old footsoldier of the South African industry. Much like the old toy soldiers buried in the garden, Semillon has been reduced to a mere shadow of its former glory days in the Cape.