Gerhard’s 2021 Flagstone Vintage Update – 14 April

We have completed the 2021 vintage for Flagstone!

Every harvest is unique, navigating nature and, more recently, extraordinary circumstances around a global pandemic. The nine weeks, from picking our first grapes on the 1^st of February to our final harvest on the 1^st of April kept us on a knife-edge. The looming threat of a third-wave of Corona that might spike in the middle of the 2021 harvest added a frenetic atmosphere to our work. We lived and worked day-to-day on high alert. Fortunately, we managed to complete the harvest without incident and our entire staff remained safe, healthy and without injury. I would like to take this opportunity to express my gratitude to everyone at Flagstone that looked out for each other and maintained safety protocols. Every bottle of wine we produce rests on the well-being of everyone at our winery and a clean bill of health is testament to the wonderful and considerate team we  have at Flagstone.

We have eight red tanks on skins that we will press this week and begin the last pressings next week. The malolactic fermentation is coming along nicely with quite a few batches are already complete. The standouts from the 2021 vintage are the Sauvignon Blanc and Viognier for our white wines and the Shiraz and Pinotage for our reds.

We now begin the second part of harvest in South Africa and that is procuring around 15 million litres of wine we require for Kumala, Fish Hoek and a few other labels.

Cheers to the 2021 harvest and wishing all the other teams in the industry still busy with their harvest good luck.

Gerhard.