2014 Vintage
Timed Online Auction, 1 - 11 March 2024
2014 Vintage
Incl. Buyer's Premium & VAT
About this Item
Chris and Suzanne Alheit set the wine world on fire with their maiden 2011 Cartology receiving 96 points from Robert Parker’s Wine Advocate. Aiming to harness the best old vineyards across the Cape, the Cartology offered a textured old-vine Chenin Blanc Semillon blend with startling purity and depth. Passionate and focused on the expression of place, tiny, long-forgotten parcels were added to the range, and are today South Africa’s most profound white wines. We auction maiden vintages of Magnetic Makstok on the legendary ‘Skurfkop’ in the Citrusdal area, Huilkrans in the Paardeberg, La Colline in Franschhoek, and, extremely rare Radio Lazarus in Stellenbosch.
Magnetic North is a single origin Chenin Blanc wine. Since it’s maiden vintage in 2013, this wine has become a perennial star in our line-up. Every vintage, it manages to combine power and finesse in a way very few other Chenin vineyards from anywhere (not just the Cape) are able to do. From the legendary ‘Skurfberg’ area, South Africa’s ‘grand cru’ site for Chenin Blanc. These vineyards are in the Citrusdal Mountain ward, situtated in the mountain wilderness of the West Coast.
The vineyard lies a few degrees off true north from the cellar, roughly on magnetic North. The name implies distance and exploration. It implies a true course of action or movement. It implies an attractive force causing them to drive miles and miles for there vines. There is plenty of iron in the soil, which is a magnetic element, so that fit nicely too. In physical reality, Magnetic North is always moving, it never remains in the same place, so there is the added implication of a mysterious unattainable target.
Provenance
Private Client
Critics Ratings
'Alheits’ 2nd single-vineyard chenin, 2014 off old, tiny-yield, ungrafted (’makstok’), dryland chenin from Olifants River. More austere in structure than Lazarus (drier, acidity more pronounced, less rich), even more relentlessly graceful, the fruit super-subtle, the stoniness stonier. Already profound, can only gain in complexity & depth for a decade, like debut 2013.'- Platter's SA Wine Guide 2016, 4.5* (95/100)
'Showing more reticence than it did last year at a similar stage, this West Coast Chenin is very focused, with acidity and flavours that verge on austerity. But allow the wine to open in the glass: it fattens and broadens with notes of fennel, wax and savoury spice. Drink: 2015-22.' - Tim Atkin MW, SA Special Report 2015, 95/100
'100% Chenin Blanc from a vineyard plated in the early 1980s on the Skurfberg. An ethereal nose of lime, lemon, pear and peach plus a little mushroom. Mind-blowing fruit purity and arresting acidity – it manages to convey both the essence of the variety AND a sense of place. The finish meanwhile is extraordinarily long. Intense but not weighty, vital and refined, this is a beautiful wine.' - Christian Eedes, Winemag.co.za, 96/100
'The 2014 Magnetic North Mountain Makstok comes from a ridge located at 520 meters. It has slightly more detail on the nose compared to Radio Lazarus: red apple, honeysuckle, peach skin and a touch of wild mint. The palate is linear, very focused and precise, fresh and tensile; it is not the most complex Chenin Blanc, but it works because it is so minimalist that you find yourself focusing upon the traces of grapefruit and white peach. This is more about texture than flavor and yet it remains an utterly absorbing wine.' - Robert Parker, Wine Advocate, 93/100
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