Thorne & Daughters, `Snakes & Ladders` Sauvignon Blanc

Thorne & Daughters are widely acknowledged to be a key figure in South Africa’s ‘New Wave’ wine movement, producing “lovely, quite cerebral wines” (as described by Neal Martin for The Wine Advocate) from some of the Western Cape’s finest vineyards. John and Tasha Thorne-Seccombe founded the project in 2013, inspired by a happy encounter with two similarly trailblazing young winemakers, Chris Alheit and Peter-Allan Finlayson. They continue to work with Peter-Allan today, making the Thorne & Daughters wines in the same cellar as Gabriëlskloof.

Thorne & Daughters produce Cape blends and single vineyard wines, using grapes sourced from 15 growers in Bot River, Stellenbosch, Voor Paardeberg, Swartland, Citrusdal, Franschhoek and Overberg. John and Tasha did not want to be limited geographically, so the net was cast wide and driven by “a happy synergy of people, place, soil and vines”. As John puts it, he aims to look for vineyards which combine these four elements and seeks to do these vineyards justice in the cellar. Each relationship is unique, but where possible, they apply the ‘lutte raisonnée’ approach to farming, working closely with growers to help eradicate the use of chemical herbicides and fungicides, and to build “thriving” soil health.

John and Tasha’s approach to vinification is relatively simple. For the white wines, they generally work without additions. The wines are fermented using indigenous yeasts in old French oak barrels, ranging in size from 225 to 600 litres, where they remain during malolactic fermentation. The white wines then tend to stay on their lees until blending, which takes place in the November following the harvest. The same minimal intervention philosophy applies to their red wines, where they aim for gentle extraction. Including stems and whole clusters helps support the structure of the reds, thereby avoiding the need for new oak.

Their flagship wine, ‘Rocking Horse’, blends Roussanne, Semillon, Chardonnay, Chenin Blanc and Clairette from several parcels around the Western Cape, while ‘Tin Soldier’ comes from a single parcel on the Paardeberg mountain in Swartland, believed to be South Africa's only 100% Semillon Gris vineyard. ‘Cat’s Cradle’ and ‘Paper Kite’ both express the Paardeberg mountain through the lens of different old bush-trained vineyards, Chenin Blanc and Semillon Blanc, respectively. ‘Snakes & Ladders’ hails from a Sauvignon Blanc vineyard planted in 1985 in the Skurfberg mountains on the Cape’s west coast, a wild and remote area tempered by cooling Atlantic breezes. Fruit for the ‘Copper Pot’ Pinot Noir is sourced from numerous sites in the Overberg region, while the ‘Wanderer’s Heart’ is a Cape red blend, comprising Grenache Noir, Syrah, Grenache, Mourvèdre and Carignan. All the Thorne & Daughters’ wines provide an honest expression of place, showing the incredible variation of sites and grapes to be found within the Western Cape.