Winemaking at Eenzaamheid culminate in a single goal: to produce unique and extraordinary wines from our dryland vineyards. The wines are produced in limited quantities with an intense focus on quality.

Every cluster of Eenzaamheid grapes is hand-harvested, and just as much care is taken during transportation from the vineyard to the winery. The integrity of the grapes is assured by placing the clusters in small boxes that hold no more than 16 kilograms.

Although the grapes are harvested in cool conditions at the crack of dawn, the full crates are stacked in a cold room for a few hours to cool down even more prior to being sorted and destemmed.

The grapes are hand-sorted, and any leaves or imperfect grapes are discarded.

Because Eenzaamheid produces a very limited quantity of wine, each fermentation vessel is dedicated to a single lot of grapes; each tank is used only once during harvest, which means that fermentation and maceration are never rushed.

A few days of pre-fermentation maceration at low temperatures in our open-top fermenters draw out a myriad of rich flavours and colours from the skins, seeds and pulp. Fermentation takes place in temperature controlled open-top fermentation vessels and the rising cap is punched down manually every 6 hours. After fermentation, the skins, seeds and pulp are pressed in a traditional basket press. To provide backbone to the free-run wine, a portion of the pressed wine is added to the final blend.

Malolactic fermentation takes places in 300 litre French oak barrels, where the wine will also undergo its maturation process. Once the wine is safely in barrel, the topping and racking processes begin. During the 11-months of barrel maturation, Janno continually tastes from each barrel, evaluating the evolution of the wine.

After almost a year in barrel, the wine is bottled unfiltered and unfined and undergoes an additional year of bottle age before the wine is released— some two years after harvest.