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Citrusdal Mountain. This extraordinary 100% Chenin Blanc hails from one of South Africa’s northernmost wine regions, the arid Citrusdal Mountain District, on the west bank of the Olifants River. Specifically, the fruit comes from the late Basie van Lill’s 90-year-old ungrafted bush vines at 640 metres on the decomposed, red sandstone slopes of the Skurfberg (which means ‘rigid mountain’). Planted between 1940 and 1955, these immaculately farmed vines have never been treated with herbicides or chemical fertilisers. “It is a truly great site for Chenin, and it is most unusual that such a warm and dry area still produces wines with this enormous texture and freshness,” says Eben. The result is an earthy, tension-fuelled wine that can easily stand up to the greatest Chenins of the Loire—a wine of jaw-dropping texture, mineral energy and complexity. Eben notes that the 2024 “is a more linear version of the vineyard expression, and the wine should fill out with time in the bottle.”