Adoro Wines

Adoro is a relatively new wine which only came into being in 2004, the result of a co-operation between Lucas de Kock, a highly-respected viticulturalist, and winemaker Ian Naudé. Lucas and Ian had spent many years gaining experience in vineyards all around the world, and when offered the chance to bring Adoro to fruition they sought out parcels of fruit from different locations within South Africa, owning no vineyards themselves but seeking to perfect blends sourced from unique terroirs.

White wines are fermented in tank and then kept on their lees, with occasional batonnage, until just before final filtration and bottling. For the red wines the grapes are totally de-stemmed before crushing and alcoholic fermentation takes place in tank. 75% of the juice is then transferred to French oak barrels for malolactic fermentation. The wines remain in barrel for 12-18 months, part of the time still in contact with their gross lees, with regular stirring, until they are lightly fined and filtered just prior to bottling. The aim is very much to create blends, rather than single varietal wines, as Ian Naudé feels that in this way he has more freedom to select, each vintage, fruit from different locations according to what nature has yielded. Even the one single varietal wine he produces, a Sauvignon Blanc, is drawn from 5 different vineyard sites, the proportion coming from each varying from year to year.