Richard Kershaw wines was founded in 2012, by Master of Wine Richard Kershaw. Richard’s mission is to focus on noble grapes and create clonally selected, site-specific, cool climate wines in the Elgin Valley, South Africa’s coolest wine region.
Born and raised in the UK, Richard traveled extensively before settling in South Africa in 1999 to make wine full time. He is one of only 10 Masters of Wine who actively make their own wines, and South Africa’s only winemaking Master of Wine. In addition to making wine in his own cellar, Richard serves as a wine show judge for many prestigious competitions around the globe, as well as a wine educator: he is part of the educational panel for the Institute of Masters of Wine, lectures for the WSET (Wine & Spirit Education Trust) in South Africa, and shares the breadth of his knowledge with students and consumers via talks, tastings and blogs.
Kershaw’s grapes are grown in the cool climate vineyards of Elgin in the Western Cape of South Africa.
Surrounded by mountains, the Elgin district sits in the Western Cape of South Africa. The Elgin Valley benefits from higher altitude, ocean proximity, specific cloud cover sequencing, high cold units and a large diurnal range, similar to Southern Burgundy and the Northern Rhône, which enables the germane grapes, Chardonnay and Syrah, to show a sense of place.
Annual production is 8,100 9-liter cases. They produce a limited number of cases of Kershaw Elgin Chardonnay, Syrah and Pinot Noir, each vintage under their Clonal Selection range, and site- soil- and clone- specific Elgin Chardonnay and Syrah in our Deconstructed range. They recently introduced their GPS Series, which explores unusual sites from outside the Elgin region, and the Smuggler's Boot range, in which Richard uses a variety of winemaking techniques to produce easy drinking wines.
Each Clonal Selection wine is made from 3-4 small parcels on terroir-specific plots with particular soils types. Each Deconstructed wine is made from clone specific, soil specific site in Elgin. Grapes are handpicked into small lugs and vinified in Elgin, where they are handled minimally, using a gravity-fed system that avoids pumping, and see no additives.
"Richard Kershaw MW has put forth an impressive array of thoughtfully crafted bottles that express the terroir or clone from which they spring. With the Clonal Selection range, Kershaw experiments with identical clones of Chardonnay and Syrah grown in different soils and bottled individually. These wines possess an honesty that is refreshing and demonstrates the nature of clonal selection and its interaction with terroir via the focus of a Master of Wine. They are limited production and available only through allocation. It will be your lucky day if you seek them out and attain a bottle for yourself. - Anthony Mueller"
