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GRAPE GRO WING (Continued from page 105.) crush just the stem, about four weeks before picking. The Shiraz goes into two wines, our Africana and the Port-style Gemoedrsus. For that wine we pick in two tranches (harvests). The first skins are distilled into grappa; then we ferment from the second, later picking in open oak barrels and add grappa to the wine on the skins to fortify before pressing again. The goal is to maintain the primacy of the fruit." Taste profile like no other A Rhone blend, Hiervandaan contains 12% desiccated fruit, but the showpiece at Solms-Delta for this technique is the winery's Africana, which boasts "smoky oak flavors," according to the data sheet. After touring the vineyards, Hegewisch guides me to the tasting room and opens a vertical flight of Africana from 2005 through 2009. The dark, inky wine is 100% desic- cated Franschhoek Shiraz. It arrives with its own press kit. Neil Beckett, a British wine writer, lists it in the book he edited among "The 1,001 Wines You Must Try Before You Die," praising its fire-roasted chocolate and huckleberry flavors. The wine I taste is nothing like any other wine I've ever encountered in more than 40 years of sipping. I thought I'd tasted every imaginable variety and blend. Nope. The desic- cated '05 packs intense power and coats the mouth with a kind of caramelized sherry and toffee blend. It should be too cloying to swallow, but it strangely also delivers enough acid to counter these opaque, unctuous notes. Later vintages are less integrated, but they become immediately and distinctly recognizable in flavor and aroma. The wine is heavy without becoming syrupy, thick yet reasonably balanced with tan- SolmsDelta uses desiccated Shiraz in two of its wines. nic structure to support the dark, mocha-layered fruit. Not a picnic wine, a cigar wine. Above all, the Africana is a wine that defines Mark Solms' personality: It's a wine with gravitas, there's nothing glib about it. And it's a wine that only a man with the courage of his convictions would attempt to make. Calif. He is the editor of the digital magazine Uncorked by Apple No- mad and is the author of "Big Cotton." Learn more at seguecellars.com. Stephen Yafa lives in Mill Valley and makes his wine in Sebastopol, TransitionEquip_Dir11 11/2/10 11:50 AM Page 1 4265 Hall Road, Santa Rosa, CA 95401 e-mail: vickitec@aol.com www.transitionequipment.com Tel: (707) 537-7787 Fax: (707) 537-7174 Cell: (707) 484-8776 QSEE US AT UNIFIED, BOOTH #217 108 Wines & Vines JAnUARY 2012 QSEE US AT UNIFIED, BOOTH #426 QSEE US AT UNIFIED, BOOTH #1236g