Description
A wine made with love and passion, the 2025 Axle Chenin Blanc is a tribute to the winemaker’s wife, who inspired its creation. Sourced from 1985-planted dry-land bush vines in Darling, this Chenin embodies the essence of old South African bush vine terroir. Fermented naturally in seasoned barrels and aged on its lees for 9 months, it presents an inviting bouquet of ripe pear, subtle spice, and a striking minerality. The palate is textural, with hints of wild pear, herbal lemon, and a touch of lees, while a crisp acidity and flinty finish with a whisper of tangerine pith adds freshness and complexity. A wine that’s both charming and evocative, with a memorable, lingering finish.
Tasting Notes
Greg Sherwood 95
By now, everyone knows the story of how Alex Milner was persuaded by his wife to produce one white wine for her to drink in the hot summer months. This old dryland bushvine Chenin Blanc planted in 1985 was the result and now has its own devout cult following making it one of Natte Valleij s fastest selling wines every year. The 2025 comes from one of the best quality vintages in the Cape since 2021, offering up a rather serious, steely, mineral-tinged expression packed full of dusty Granitic spice aromas, sweet, dried baking herbs, white peach and subtle tangerine fruit notes on the nose. The palate texture is taut and more tightly wound than usual, shimmering with tangy, bright steely acids, tart green apple, crunchy peaches and delicate sappy white pepper notes on the finish. Beautifully precise and focused, this is one of Alex s most classical Chenin Blanc expressions to date. Drink now to 2034+. [Greg Sherwood MW, 07/06/2026]
JancisRobinson.com 17.5
Fragrance on the nose shifting, dappled, like spring sunlight through bare branches fuzzy with buds. Petrichor, apple blossom, acacia flowers, brick dust. Alex Milner s chicane of making a bone-dry Chenin taste like a dessert wine. Baked pears set within a crystal cluster of acidity, prismic in its brightness, in the way it seems to split and bend the frequency of the wine s energy into a blade of rainbows. Spiciness – cinnamon, fine-ground cigar, cardamon – rising and falling on the breath of the wine. [Tamlyn Currin, 25/03/2026]
Anticipated maturity: 2026-2032
