Excellence in a Bottle: Rikus Neethling Chenin Blanc 2024
What an unexpected honor to be awarded 95 points by Wine Magazine Chenin blanc Report for our Rikus Neethling Chenin Blanc 2024! My motto with the Rikus Neethling Range has always been to offer good quality wine at a good price. Receiving this rating truly justifies that belief!
This is always a strange time of year, when things begin to quiet down in both the cellar and the vineyards. All the 2025 wines have now completed fermentation and are safely in barrel, maturing over the coming months—and, for some, years. We’ll be starting to look at bottling some of our reds in the next couple of months.
In the vineyard, our fertilisation has been completed as planned. The first rains of the winter season are falling, dams are filling up, and fireplaces are being lit. These are all signs that the vineyards are shedding their leaves and preparing for a few months of rest. Pruning will start at the end of June and continue into early September. I always look forward to pruning—it’s the moment when we begin shaping the next vintage. Everything always starts in the vineyard.
Last week we attended the annual Graaf Reinet Stoeptasting presented by The Karoo Wine Club. This has to be by now South Africa Premier Wine Event. The quality wine I have tasted over the weekend, is just amazing, mingling with wine lovers mainly from the Eastern Cape but also all around South Africa is making this event so much fun, for wineries and wine drinkers! I urge you to attend on Stoeptasting in your life time.
The Rikus Neethling Chenin Blanc 2024 is made from grapes sourced from the Blaauwklippen Valley in Stellenbosch. Harvesting the Chenin Blanc is always a balance between fruit profile, sugar levels, and acidity. I aim to extract as much fruit character from the grapes as possible, while still producing a wine with crisp acidity—perfect to enjoy with food or on its own on a warm summer day.
As I mentioned above, it’s all about offering excellent wine at a good price. And as the saying goes, “I’m so proud, I even put my name on it.”
