Since it’s founding in 1986 Neil Ellis Wines has been one of the most preponderant and well known wine producers in the world and has in many ways led to South African wine gaining universal approval and acceptance within the community of wine connoisseurs.
Largely influenced by both French wine making techniques and the French ideal of terrior being expressed in wine Neil Ellis has made sure to continue the French ideal of making wine from individual vineyards. Although this idea has picked up steam in many parts of the new world, in 1986 this was in large part a foreign belief outside of France and small parts of Italy. For a novice wine drinker finding a producer that has two wines made of the same techniques like the Neil Ellis Chardonnay line, can feel how much impact the differences that vineyard have on wine. It’s unfortunate that the midpoint wine drinker does not have the opportunity to peruse different vineyards and find their profound impact on the wine that ends up in your glass.
Wines
Neil Ellis makes every attempt to find farmers with similar goals to his own and sign long term contracts with them in order to have as much operate over farming as possible. This strategy has proven quite efficient over the long as contracts have stayed consistent both in good economic times as well as bad.
As a house owned company it does seem that Neil Ellis is in a best position to work with farmers with an eye toward long term relationships instead of needing to worry about short term stock store gains or price/quality for a particular vintage as some of the larger wine estates must worry about constantly.
About the wine, which is truly the most prominent part. It’s hard to generalize any of Neil Ellis wine, given both the collection of wines being produced as well as the sheer size of the allinclusive production (40,000 cases). What you will find are wines that record the district in South Africa that they were grown in. Of extra interest to me are the Sauvignon Blanc’s which are grown in granite and take an earthy feel which is quite rare in that variety. As for red wine they make an superior Shiraz (or Syrah) that has an old world feel of lower alcohol to it which is a nice break from some of the higher alcohol Australian versions of the varietal.
Neil Ellis Wines
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