Stellenbosch
Three Quarters
Syrah
StrawberryFynbosFloralWhite PepperElegant Power
Details
Variety
Syrah
Style
Red
Region
Western Cape
Appellation
Stellenbosch
Producer
Three Quarters
Country
South Africa
Trade Materials
The Inspiration
Sourced from the acclaimed Polkadraai Hills of Stellenbosch, this Syrah reflects one of South Africa's exciting sites for the variety. Granite soils, cooling ocean breezes and naturally low-yielding vineyards combine to produce wines of remarkable freshness, purity and finesse. It's a place where Syrah expresses itself with elegance rather than power, allowing the vineyard's character to shine through.
Crafted with minimal intervention, the wine is an honest expression of both site and season. Refined, vibrant and quietly complex, it embodies Mahalia Kotjane's philosophy of letting nature guide the process, creating a Syrah that is unmistakably Stellenbosch while remaining graceful, approachable and full of personality.
About Three Quarters
Wine with as little intervention as possible
Mahalia Kotjane's passion for wine stems from an unlikely beginning: a school project on microorganisms where she researched the role yeast plays in the fermentation process. That early curiosity sparked a journey that would take her from a township in Johannesburg to the vineyards of the Western Cape, where she studied agriculture before landing her first job in the wine industry in 2011.
Roles as a winemaker at Stark-Condé and Lievland Family Wines honed Mahalia's skills and deepened her understanding of South African terroir. With the confidence and expertise gained from years of hands-on winemaking, she decided to venture out on her own under her own Black-female-owned label, Three Quarters, a name that nods to her order of birth among her siblings.
Her maiden release was a Syrah, the first varietal she produced as a student, and a full-circle moment in her winemaking journey. Mahalia believes in the role that weather, terroir and the creative process play in crafting wine, and she creates each bottle with as little intervention as possible. Three Quarters represents a deeply personal expression of place, passion and possibility in the new South African wine landscape.
