Hamilton Russell Vineyards Pinot Noir 1981-2021
BY NEAL MARTIN |
Proprietors Anthony and Olive Hamilton Russell recently tutored a special tasting of Hamilton Russell Vineyards’ flagship Pinot Noir to mark 40-years of vintages. Tim Hamilton Russell purchased the uncultivated 170-hectare land in Hemel-en-Aarde back in 1975 for the equivalent sum of £3,000 (about $4,000). “Serendipitously, my father planted 52-hectares of vines in 1976 on the right kind of heavy clayey soil from a Swiss clone (BK65) that had been smuggled into the country,” Anthony Hamilton Russell explained. “The 1981 Pinot Noir was our first release, and we made an experimental Chardonnay the following year. My father lived in Johannesburg. He never made money from the estate until I bought it from him in 1994. We had around eight labels, but I decided to focus on Pinot Noir and Chardonnay from the best parts of our vineyard. All our Pinot Noir has been made from our own vines since 1992. By the mid-nineties, the vines were heavily virused, and so I began to replant using Dijon clones: 115, 113, 667 and 777. The vineyard had been totally replanted by 1997. We were four-years ahead in that respect – essentially a testing ground for Dijon clones in the Cape. These have since become a little virused, though now we replace them individually instead of uprooting an entire parcel. We have farmed organically since 2014. I sent our vineyard manager to Canada to learn, instead of California where it is too dry.”
Anthony and Olive Hamilton Russell, pictured in London, March 2022.
