Luke O’Cuinneagain

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207 appearances 1 recordings 1 series first heard Jul 2026 last heard 31 Jul

Luke O’Cuinneagain’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.

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The Drinking Hour: With David Kermode - FoodFM · Episode 277 - Luke O’Cuinneagain of Vergelegen · 31 Jul 2026 podcast

And it's those little details, because the one thing that you have to remember is where we're situated.

You go back in history.

This was initially it was under the sea and then it became a river delta.

So we've got a lot of sedimentary soils here, the likes of shale and things like that.

But then we have got a lot of granites that have pushed up.

So we're in a fortunate position that we've got the two soil types that we work with.

And it allows us to bounce those off in blends to get our unique sense of place.

Well, I'm glad you're picking that up because we do spend a lot of time trying to work on that sort of feel to the wine because texture in wine plays probably the most important role for me in wines.

And going back and you're looking at Cabernet, for instance, the different soils do give you a different tannin expression.

So there's certain that are more gravelly and then there's others that are more...

black almost slaty in the expression and there's a density about them so some are much more tightly wound and dense and then you've got others that are a little bit more should we say preppy and up front and it's this play with the tannins and texture that we're looking to try and intertwine into the wines to give you this the textural profile that's very reminiscent of a cooler site that we have

because we are fundamentally a lot cooler than other parts of Stellenbosch.

And I think that helps with the freshness coming through.

I mean, if you're looking at something like Sauvignon Blanc, for instance, we naturally have very low pHs, very high acidities here because of our proximity to the ocean and how cool it is.

Yeah, I think it's the way it's portrayed as well because of these low pHs and everything.

So, and when you're tasting those wines, we tasted those two tanks next to one another and the sights are only probably a hundred meters from one another, but their aspect has changed and you get one that's got that very racy acidity and one that's much more generous, should we say.

And it's trying to get that balance of the two going together.

We tend to give a lot longer skin contacts here to try and drop out some acidity and give them a very long period on the leaves to build that texture again to combat that acidity and give you that mouthfeel and generosity.

It's fantastic.

If you have it naturally, I feel you've got a natural balance.

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