Stellenbosch · Western Cape
Stellenbosch Cabernet Sauvignon
Understand the wine. Understand your taste. Make better decisions. Forces create conditions. Choices create outcomes. Explore what shaped this wine, the choices behind it, and the outcome in your glass.
Hand-picked from a single low-yield western-slope vineyard. Six hundred bottles. A wine of deep structure, harmonised tannins and a finish that lingers long after the glass is set down.
The Forces
Create Conditions ClimateThe Choices
Create Outcomes ApproachThe Outcomes
Creates the ExperienceEvery wine is shaped by three things: the Forces nature provides, the Choices the winemaker makes, and the Outcome you taste. This page shows you all three, scroll down to see exactly how this bottle came to be.
Forces
Nature creates the conditions
Choices
The winemaker shapes the outcome
Outcomes
This is what you taste
The Forces
Climate
Stellenbosch sits in Winkler Region III, a moderate climate with warm days, cool nights and the cooling influence of False Bay. This diurnal range is crucial: heat builds sugar and ripeness during the day, while cool nights preserve the natural acidity that gives this wine its structure and longevity.
Moderate heat accumulation. Enough warmth for full Cabernet ripeness; cool enough to retain freshness and acid structure.
Learn About the Winkler System →Amount, timing, and severity.
Winter dominant
Composition, structure, drainage.
Altitude, slope and aspect combined.
4 — Difficult
The Choices
Human decisions shape the wine
Winemaker's Approach
This wine sits at Level 4 on the Aurenloch Approach Scale: Develop. The intention from the outset was to build richness, structure and layered complexity through extended maturation, not to preserve primary fruit freshness, but to allow the wine time to become something greater than its parts.
Level 4 · Develop: richness and structure built through maturation
The Vineyard Choices
Decisions in the vineyard shape the raw material.
Variety, clone, rootstock.
Bush Vine, Espalier, Perold.
The level of yield and balance.
Leaves, light and airflow.
To water or not, how much.
When to pick for balance and ripeness.
The Winery Choices
Decisions in the winery shape the final wine.
What we want to achieve.
How the grapes are prepared.
Yeast, temperature, vessel.
How much time on skin.
Tank, Barrel, Concrete, Amphora, Lees, Time.
Bringing components together.
The Outcomes
This is where nature and human decisions meet the glass.
The Aurenloch Style Compass
Aroma
The nose opens with deep oak spice and pencil shavings, classic hallmarks of extended French oak maturation. Dark berries emerge: blackcurrant, black plum, mulberry. Underneath, graphite and a faint tobacco leaf. The wine breathes into complexity over the first hour open.
The Five Cost of Creation Levels
Investment
Precision becomes the priority. These wines involve careful vineyard management, extensive selection and significant hands-on winemaking. Every stage is designed to build depth, balance and character.
- Low vineyard yields
- Hand harvesting
- Careful sorting
- Quality oak maturation
- Longer ageing
- Premium packaging
Food Pairing
The structure and tannin of this wine asks for protein. Grilled red meat or slow-roasted lamb are the natural companions , the fat softens the tannin, the fruit meets the char.