Kottabos Chenin Blanc 2023

Boschkloof winery, situated near the town of Stellenbosch, was established in 1996 by Jacques Borman and his wife Marina. It is named after the natural ravine or ‘kloof’ on the farm, where the land consists of rolling hills and picturesque mountain backdrops. The south-east facing slopes, together with a maritime influence from False Bay, gives their wine the unique quality it’s known for. Son Reenen, who took over in the cellar in the early 2010s, credits the soil for much of the wines’ freshness. ‘We have the luxury of picking fully ripe the terroir adding this almost perceived freshness or energy to the wines. It’s not something I can create in the cellar’.

Kottabos is a Greek drinking game of the highest skill – where after many glasses of wine one elegantly flings the leftover lees from naturally unfiltered wine toward predetermined targets in the room with fellow drinking friends. In this case, ‘Kottabos’ is a small side project from Reenen, in which he experiments with more adventurous winemaking techniques on grapes grown in the Polkadraai Hills. In 2020 Reenen wanted to get even more experimental and produced one barrel of skin fermented Chenin from the Karibib Vineyard. The results were positive, and this spicy and textured wine is now in its third iteration.