“Op Sy Moer” is made from the grape varieties Palomino (37%), Grenache Blanc (33%) and Chenin Blanc (30%), which come from the Piekenierskloof mountain area, where the cool climate and the soil of sandstone and lime deposits produce very aromatic and delicate wines .
It is son Warren Ellis who is responsible for the vinification of this wine. With “Op Sy Moer” Warren wants to mark a new way of making white wines at Neil Ellis. The bunches are pressed whole, and the must is first allowed to macerate coolly for 3 days before the temperature rises. The long, cool fermentation takes place spontaneously in steel tanks with the grapes’ natural yeast cells, without the addition of sulphur. After fermentation and a natural sedimentation, the wine “sur lie” matures for a few months in the same type of tank. The bottling takes place without filtration, which is why a little sediment or crystals may form in the bottle. All this to prioritize the aroma and fruit in the wine.
The wine has a nice, light golden color with a greenish tinge. The scent is immediate and aromatic with nuances of citrus fruits, peaches and green apples, but also more exotic tones of ginger, grape and passion fruit. The taste is dry, crisp and with good harmony between finesse and complexity. It is a wine that continues to change with oxygenation and that ends with good body and freshness. A real “natural wine”. Serve it with vegetable dishes, seafood and fish.
Neil Ellis Wines was established in 1993 by two of South Africa’s greatest wine personalities, Neil Ellis and Hans Peter Schroder. Neil Ellis is probably the most well-known winemaker in South Africa, and before establishing his own company he had first been around the cooperative wine world in KWV, and then responsible for one of the country’s best-known historic properties, the Groot Constantia Estate.
At the start in 1993, Neil Ellis Wines was based on the Oude Nektar property in Jonkershoek near Stellenbosch, but as the two partners gradually expanded the growing area to a few other of South Africa’s top districts, space gradually became too tight on this property. When Neil Ellis’ children Warren, Charl and Margot also joined the company, who respectively Chief Winemaker/Director, Commercial Director and Brand Manager, the Ellis family decided to end the collaboration with Hans Peter Schroder and to build a new modern winery at Helshoogte Pass on the outskirts of the town of Stellenbosch.
Today, Neil Ellis Wines owns vineyards in the Jonkershoek Valley, Groenekloof (near the Darling Hills on South Africa’s cool west coast), Elgin (often referred to as South Africa’s Burgundy) and Piekenierskloof (in the southern Olifants River in the Western Cape, home to some of the highest situated fields in South Africa). This diversity is one of the secrets behind the unique harmony between strength and charm found in the wines of Neil Ellis, which today are produced under the management of son Warren Ellis.