Cultivating Quality in Everything We Do.

An objective that has guided De Toren from the outset. From pioneering cellar techniques to redefining the boundaries of extreme viticulture, the wines of De Toren Private Cellar are marked by devotion to quality, and ensuring the truth of the vine is told.

It’s this same quest for perfection that led to the decision to erect South Africa’s first ever 100% gravity-fed cellar. ‘De Toren’, the Dutch translation for ‘the tower’ was named after this stature, reaching skywards from the cellar roof. The whole cellar was designed around our desire to treat the grapes as gently and softly as possible throughout the entire winemaking process.

This famed tower is at the centre of our winemaking philosophy, since it helps facilitate the movement of our wines by making use of gravity. In the tower is a tank that moves up and down mechanically and all the wine flows through it by way of gravity. By means of the mechanical movement, the tank in the tower is moved down a level, after which a pipe is connected to it. The other end of the pipe is then connected to the fermentation tank on the upper level, which allows the wine to flow freely between these two tanks, through means of gravity. Then the tank in the tower is hoisted up to the top of the tower again, after which the other end of the pipe is connected to a barrel or another tank, where the wine trickles down by gravity.

All the De Toren wine moves through this tower. Wine is a very complex compilation of flavours and chemical compositions and we are of the belief, through means of our team’s experience and the research that have been done, that when you pump the wine, it disturbs these complex interactions and combinations. A good example or explanation, is a peach being rolled down a flight of stairs. Following this, the peach’s quality will be affected and the fruit will be bruised, resulting in a harsh extraction of flavours. Our belief here at De Toren is that once you have the perfect fruit, it is all about conserving the integrity of this fruit throughout the winemaking process.

We, here at De Toren, firmly believe that if you respect the quality of the fruit, the fruit will respect you in the bottle.

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