Durbanville Hills gets high ranking for blended white
Durbanville Hills Winery’s Tangram White Blend 2018 has been lauded as one of the world’s 12 top-scoring wines at the 2021 Global Sauvignon Blanc Masters, hosted by The Drinks Business magazine.
With 200 Sauvignon blancs from around the world tasted blind, Durbanville Hills’ cool climate excellence shared top 12 recognition along with Sauvignon blancs produced in France, Chile, New Zealand and the US.
Cellar master Martin Moore is overjoyed at the achievement of the flagship classically styled blend.
“Back in 1999, during our first harvest, I had the vision of one day crafting a top-end blend, one that would showcase our unique location with its close proximity to the ocean and cooling sea breezes, valleys enclosed by hills offering slopes of varying altitudes, rich soils with excellent water retention and a cool climate with a distinctive microclimate.
“But we realised at the time that we were embarking on a long-term project.
“We would need to expand our knowledge, allow our vineyards to mature and adapt our cellar if we wanted to realise our objective.
“To this end we created a small cellar at Durbanville Hills a few years ago, dedicated to the making of truly handcrafted wines where each component of the Tangram White Blend 2018 was gently handled.
“Achieving a top 12 global award has definitely made the wait and patience all that more gratifying.”
As with the Chinese seven-piece Tangram puzzle, where one has to look at the whole to understand and form the myriad of images that can be shaped, the Tangram White Blend 2018 is greater than its parts.
The wine is a blend of 76% Sauvignon blanc and 24% Semillon, matured for 10 months in French oak, and is made for long-term cellaring. –