The Kingna Brandy Making Process

Brandy, like Cognac, can be made out of just about any wine. Distillation will separate the alcohol.  It is the challenge of the artist living in the brandy maker to create a spirit, which is entirely natural, at the same time rich and smooth, fine and satisfying.

Few brandies are made from a single vintage, a single variety, a single property. For balance and consistency most are blended from an array of aged stores, an art in itself, in the Cape as in Cognac. The Kingna potstill brandies are not blended but are produced from the vintage year distilled i.e The 12 year potstill is 100% from the 12 year French Oak barrels.

Kingna Distillery uses specially selected Chenin Blanc and Colombard grapes, neutral and clean tasting, with bracing acidity. The grapes are hand picked at 16 - 17° Balling, and the acid is between 8-12g/l. The grapes are de-stalked and pressed. Yeast is added to give it a clean fermentation and the rebate wine is ready for distillation. Nothing else is added to the wine; hence no preservatives may be used except the yeast. It is important to work quickly to transform the unprotected wine to "low wines" before oxidation sets in.

Batches of rebate wine (2000 litres), together with their fermentation residue, are transferred to the copper still for the first distillation. The still is heated around 99° Celsius till the alcohol in the wine vaporises and is driven up into the helm and on into the serpentine where it cools and condenses to form colourless but fragrant liquor. The rebate wine are thus distilled in batches untill all rebate wine is turned into low wines. The average strength of these low wines will be in the region of 30-32% alcohol.

The low wines are now ready for the second distillation process turning the low wines into spirits. This time three fractions of alcohol are sought, and their management is critical to the style and quality of the brandy. Again 2000 litre batches are heated in the still. The first fraction of the run, the "heads", contains some of the higher alcohols, volatile and unpleasant. These run for only a few minutes and must be collected separately from the main run, or "hearts". The hearts, the true heart of the brandy, will run for hours filling the distillery with wonderful fragrances. The remainder, the third fraction, is the "tails". The exact cut-off points at the beginning and end of the hearts run are the choice of the distiller, but the object is to achieve hearts of 68-72% alcohol. Too much heads and tails in the brandy will spoil it; too little and time, energy and alcohol are wasted. The heads and tails are returned to the low wine tank for they still contain alcohol and flavour. The hearts, still colourless and very fragrant, are retained for maturation.

It is important to note that alcohol itself is colourless and tasteless. The heart spirit that is retained for maturation may be 70% alcohol, but it is the 30% remainder that has all the flavour and latent quality, the esters and essences that we need to finish the transformation into brandy.

It is during maturation in French oak casks that the most dramatic and least understood changes in the young brandy takes place. Over the years the clear spirit mellows to yellowish- red - brown-gold, vibrant liquor and in time the brandy is ready for bottling. The minimum age for a potstill brandy in South Africa is 3 years, obviously the older the maturation process the better the brandy.