Franschhoek is home to stalwart Semillons, but none other is like Lokaia’s ‘Pound of Flesh’ Semillon by dynamic winemaking friends and business partners Craig McNaught and Clayton Reabow! The duo’s Lokaia label delves deeply into the valley’s terroir to create a fresh take on this Franschhoek classic.
The fruit for this wine hails from the valley’s wild ‘Bohoek’ area known for its temperature swings and overly generous winter rainfall. “The micro-climate here allows the Semillon grapes to ripen fully at low potential alcohols, while still maintaining zippy acidity,” say the partners. Their goal, they say, was to “extract as much personality and definition from the grapes as possible, while still maintaining purity and brightness.” The result is a wine that eschews the use of oak in favour of extended skin contact in amphorae – large terra cotta pots that allow the wines to breathe and evolve slowly.
Once harvested, the juice is fermented in contact with the skins, utilising minimal-intervention winemaking techniques. A percentage of stalks were also used to provide a rudimentary filter for draining the resulting wine. After fermentation, the skin cap is covered with a layer of extra virgin olive oil and allowed to settle for 2 months in contact with the skins.
Lime, green apple and white peach plus subtle notes of blossom and hay on the nose. The palate has a great core of fruit matched by arresting acidity, while the finish possesses the very slightest touch of phenolic grip. Pure and yet simultaneously delicate with great energy.
Oh yes, don’t go looking for Lokaia on a map. Lokaia, or more properly ‘Ole Lukøje’ (pronounced Ole Lokaia) is the spirit of sleep and dreams from Hans Christian Andersen’s fable of the same name. In English we simply know him as ‘the Sandman’. If you’re looking for the wines they’re available online, or from the cellar doors at Stony Brook and Môreson.
Alcohol 10.33% vol | Residual Sugar 1.6 g/l | Total Acid 6.4 g/l | PH 3.27
www.lokaia.com | 084 510 1496