Alheit Vineyards - Magnetic North, 2018

Chris and Suzanne Alheit set the wine world on fire with their maiden 2011 Cartology receiving 96 points from Robert Parker’s Wine Advocate. Aiming to harness the best old vineyards across the Cape, the Cartology offered a textured old-vine Chenin Blanc Semillon blend with startling purity and depth. Passionate and focused on the expression of place, tiny, long-forgotten parcels were added to the range, and are today South Africa’s most profound white wines. We auction maiden vintages of Magnetic Makstok on the legendary ‘Skurfkop’ in the Citrusdal area, Huilkrans in the Paardeberg, La Colline in Franschhoek, and, extremely rare Radio Lazarus in Stellenbosch. Magnetic North is a single origin Chenin Blanc wine. Since it’s maiden vintage in 2013, this wine has become a perennial star in our line-up. Every vintage, it manages to combine power and finesse in a way very few other Chenin vineyards from anywhere (not just the Cape) are able to do. From the legendary ‘Skurfberg’ area, South Africa’s ‘grand cru’ site for Chenin Blanc. These vineyards are in the Citrusdal Mountain ward, situtated in the mountain wilderness of the West Coast. The vineyard lies a few degrees off true north from the cellar, roughly on magnetic North. The name implies distance and exploration. It implies a true course of action or movement. It implies an attractive force causing them to drive miles and miles for there vines. There is plenty of iron in the soil, which is a magnetic element, so that fit nicely too. In physical reality, Magnetic North is always moving, it never remains in the same place, so there is the added implication of a mysterious unattainable target.