Blank bottle by Pieter Walser: Recent Episodes
Swig
Pieter Walser is a rare gem. He’s one of those humble people we can all too easily overlook, but to do so would be one of the biggest mistakes of your life. For not only is Pieter one of life’s genuine folk who will add salt to your life, he is bottling some of South Africa’s most beautiful wines. Every one of Pieter’s wines is a story, rather than a grape variety, and it’s the juice inside the bottle which reveals that story. He doesn’t own any vines, but instead scours South Africa’s winelands for top-quality fruit that has somehow slipped under the radar, now sourcing from nearly 70 sites.
CULTIVARS: Weisser Riesling
VINEYARDS/COMPONENTS: 1
ORIGIN: ELGIN
This vineyard is something really special to me as well as the Farmer, Andre van Wyk. He farms 4 little vineyards on a section of land in Elgin. The soil differs between these sites as it is situated on the very top of a mountainous outcrop.
The Im Hinterhofkabuff vineyard is small and is planted in pure yellow sandstone rock, vines trellised onto single poles - like they do in the Mosel, Germany. There is no irrigation and the slope is steep. It is exposed to the rough and gusty South-easter wind blowing straight from Hermanus. It is a cold and rugged site which produce very little grapes - some years resulting in only one barrel. The 2018 vintage produced two barrels. It is 100% Weisser Riesling, spontaneously fermented in old, small French Oak barrels. It is a concentrated riper style of Weisser Riesling. It has a firm acidity and mineral within the rich style. It will age beautifully (the current 2012 drinking beautifully at the moment). My aim is not to imitate German-style Rieslings - we try to capture the South African sunlight in this wine…
The story of Im Hinterhofkabuff:
Some of my German clients think that the "branding" of "IM HINTERHOFKABUFF" was neatly thought through, specially and specifically designed to enter and crack the German wine market for BLANKbottle. And yes, the fact that I called the wine a dialect/regional/nickname sort of German name does make the wine sell in Germany. But the truth is that I cannot take credit for it at all, I am just not all that strategical. The truth is: it fell in my lap.
Early in 2010, a journalist writing for a huge German magazine called the "Stern" phoned me. He was writing an article on South African wineries to visit, aiming it at touring soccer world cup fans. At the time and still today my office is located next to my winery in a very old dilapidated barn type of building. When I moved in I transferred the run down barn into a personal office/lounge with a nice Friday braai facility at the back. No flags, no signage, no fountains - just a run down building with skew walls and heaps of soul.
I told that very persistent German journalist that he could not meet me at the office, that we should rather try a coffee shop. It's much nicer. As you know, some people don't take no for an answer, and he was one of them. So he came out to the farm, loved all of it and spent almost 3 hours with me tasting wine and taking pictures.
Three months later my sister-in-law living in Switzerland phoned me to say that there was a massive article on South African wineries in the Stern and that BLANKbottle featured. So she emailed me the article and with the help of family I started to decipher the article. This guy kept on using the word HINTERHOFKABUFF whenever he referred to my office. So I looked it up. In old Berlin, Germany, a typical residential property would have a main house where the owner lived, and then had a sort of second house at the back called the HINTERHOF where a second family would live. And at the back of the HINTERHOF they usually had a KABUFF. Which was a little garden sort of shack-house for the very poor people to live in. So the direct translation of HINTERHOFKABUFF - BACKYARDSHACK...
I took an immediate liking to the name and my mom made a sign for my office. "The Hinterhofkabuff".
So when I made my first Weisser Riesling, a varietal that originated in the Rhine Valley Germany - it was logical to find a proper German name for it. Hence: Im Hinterhofkabuff!
BLANK BOTTLE SOUTH AFRICA
http://www.blankbottle.co.za/home
SWIG - UK
https://www.swig.co.uk/wines/blank-bottle-im-hinterhofkabuff-elgin-2018
CULTIVARS: Marsanne, Palomino, Fernao Pires, Roussanne and Verdelho
VINEYARDS/COMPONENTS: 5
ORIGIN: Paarl, Stellenbosch, Robertson, Swartland
The Story:
In the olden days, before our borders were opened for regular business, some of our leading winemakers at the time travelled to wine producing areas they admired. They mostly focused on areas with similar climatical/growing conditions to ours. Whenever they stumbled upon great wines made from varietals not grown in South Africa, they would try and get their hands on some clean plant material and (being of the less patient/more dynamic type) simply smuggled these vines into the country.
They used various techniques, one of them being… tie it to your leg, drop your pants to cover it and walk through the NOTHING TO DECLARE section at the airport as if you have… NOTHING TO DECLARE - you know the feeling...
Back in SA they would then reproduce and plant little vineyards, do trials on them and plant larger ones (to state the obvious: this was completely illegal, distributing diseases being the main risk). I, however, have seen first-hand that the type of farmer who went through all the effort to do this, is almost without fail completely passionate, super psyched-up, forward-thinking farmers/winemakers - serious producers. So they would, without a doubt, bring in clean, great quality vines.
Nothing to Declare is a tribute to these vine smugglers. Providing us, the new generation winemakers, the foundation to take this industry to new heights.
In 2012 and 2013 I made a wine that was driven by one of these illegally smuggled grape varieties. It was registered with the government as Chenin Blanc. I called it “Nothing to declare”. Since then this particular vineyard went through a process of amnesty and was now declared legal. So this wine grew from there, using that vineyard as a base and combining that with as many of the not so traditional South African varietals I have in the Winery. The 2016 ended up being 9 Varietals but in the 2018 we are down to 5 - fermented in old French Oak barrels aged for 1 year on the leese blended and bottled.
The Label:
I did a chalk drawing on the one side of one of the barrels - an image of vine cuttings tied to a man’s leg, about to be covered by his pants. After a few months, the image faded. To solidify the image, I engraved it into the wood like it was done in the olden days. So in February 2015, after bottling the first vintage, I needed a label. I bought printing ink and applied it to the surface of the carved image. I then placed a large piece of paper on it and made a print, which became the main image for the label.
BLANK BOTTLE - SOUTH AFRICA
http://www.blankbottle.co.za/home
SWIG - UK
Swig.co.uk
CULTIVARS: Verdelho, Palomino, Weisser Riesling, Harslevelű, Gewürztraminer, Crouchen blanc, Chenin blanc and Viognier
VINEYARDS/COMPONENTS: 8
ORIGIN: Various components from the Paardeberg, Robertson and Stellenbosch.
The idea behind this wine was (and still is) to select the white components in the winery we like most and to assemble a blend that represents that particular vintage in an honest and pure way. This is OUR favourite wine, not necessarily the best. The one that we as a team like the most. It is not bound to an area or varietal - it is an assembly of interesting things that differs from year to year according to whatever performed well that specific season.
The story of ORBITOFRONTAL CORTEX:
In October 2015 I was sitting on a plane heading to Joburg, next to a guy who was (or so it seemed) plugged into his computer with wires and stuff. It looked like he was communicating with the machine in a way. Once we had landed I asked him what on earth he was doing. He told me that he and his clinical psychologist business partner had started a marketing company called Neural Sense, based in Cape Town.
They conduct market research by tapping into people's subconscious reactions to various inputs. I love weird things, so I told him I make wine and if ever he wanted to do something with wine he was welcome to get in contact. And he did. Three months later I was sitting at the table in my winery hooked onto machines. All my subconscious reactions (in the LIMBIC part of my brain) to each of the 21 components were to be measured and recorded - a camera looking me in the eyes (for eye reactions), a thing on my finger (for blood oxygen levels), a heart rate monitor on my chest, something on my arm (for arousal levels e.g. heat/sweat) and a mobile EEG device on my head (for monitoring my brain waves).
It was the time of year where I had to make up final blends and I was sitting with 21 different white wine components in barrel, which were ready for blending and bottling. They were all different varietals from different areas and vineyards. So my assistant winemaker, Julia, took samples from all the barrels and put them into glasses, which my wife marked from 1 to 21. For each wine I would first close my eyes, then open them and they would start recording with the camera, hand me any wine and prompt me to nose, taste and spit - constantly monitoring and recording my heart rate, blood stuff and activity in my subconscious.
Of course I can’t control my subconscious - before I think of reacting, I already had. We tasted through all 21 wines. I obviously spat, washed my mouth with water in between and we even did a few with clean water in my mouth and used that as a control or base reaction. This process took a whole day. I like to call it work. Their job was now to analyse the data. The way I understand it is that they look at all the parts of my brain that reacted, compare it with all the other blood and heart monitors and then work out with mathematical algorithm what I liked and disliked.
The analysis of the data took months, so in the meantime Julia and I decided to blend a control - the best possible white blend from the same 21 parcels - making use of our conscious mind; the ORBITOFRONTAL CORTEX. When the results came, the two wines were so different! We blended both and bottled the 2 wines. Please note - we are NOT trying to prove something with this experiment. We were just trying to have fun. And we did… So, LIMBIC 2015 - Wellington Chenin blanc, Darling Chenin blanc, Swartland Clairette blanche, Upper Hemel and Aarde Pinot Gris and Stellenbosch Viognier And ORBITO FRONTAL CORTEX 2015 - Piekenierskloof Grenache blanc, Swartland Clairette blanche, Swartland Fernão Pires, Elgin Semillon and Voor Paardeberg Verdelho. The label: The face of the person I did as a linocut. Printed with black block ink. Printed on organic paper and hand labelled.
CULTIVARS: Verdelho, Pinot blanc, Sauvignon blanc, Rousanne, Marsanne, Chardonnay, Chenin blanc and Viognier
VINEYARDS/COMPONENTS: 8
ORIGIN: STELLENBOSCH
I am a huge fan of Swartland white blends.
The image of South African wines have changed dramatically over the past 10 years and the Swartland played a huge part in this.
With the Swartland Revolution to back them, they started to gain international fame for their Rhone style white blends.
They were the New Kids on the Block for South Africa. They are fun, young, energetic and unique.
The Story :
I studied winemaking in Stellenbosch, the original EMPIRE of South African wine. Like most of us, I also like supporting the underdog, and in this case, when it came to white blends, the Empire became the underdog.
I wanted to create a white blend based on Rhone varieties - a combination that could rival some of the Swartland white blends.
So the empire is striking back to the Swartland with a blend of all Stellenbosch Verdelho, Pinot blanc, Sauvignon blanc, Roussanne, Marsanne, Chardonnay, Chenin blanc and Viognier.
The label:
On the label it shows two sections. On the left part of the label you will see the half star - that was the logo for the Swartland Revolution, countered on the right-hand side of the label by stripes that represents an organised, traditional and conservative EMPIRE - the total opposite of the Swartland, striking towards the revolutionary star.
BLANK BOTTLE - SOUTH AFRICA
http://www.blankbottle.co.za/home
SWIG - UK
https://www.swig.co.uk/wines/blank-bottle-empire-strikes-back-stellenbosch-2018
CULTIVARS:
B BOS 1: Sauvignon blanc/Semillon
B BOS 2: Semillon
VINEYARDS/COMPONENTS: 2
ORIGIN: Cape L’Agulhas
The Story:
My grandmother grew up on a farm near a town called Bredasdorp. It’s about 45 minutes drive from L’Agulhas, where the most Southern point of the African continent is situated. When she got married, she received a wedding gift from her parents - a plot of land right next to the ocean in L’Agulhas. She built a small wooden house with the money she received as wedding gifts (seems like the standard of wedding gifts has lowered significantly in the years since then…). It’s 75 years later and the wooden house called “T-nie-C” is now my mom’s and still fully operational as a family holiday house. This is our post-harvest, post-travel, post-bottling family hideaway and very close to our hearts. The place where the kids and Aneen and I reconnect with each other and ourselves, and also where I design most of my labels.
Because of this, I’ve always wanted to produce a wine of origin Cape Agulhas. I had my eye on a few possible sites but it was a phone call from Caroline Rillema, owner of Caroline's Fine Wines (a wine shop in Cape Town), that was the start of an epic venture in this area. Caroline is a formidable force in the wine industry and she and her husband Ray, planted two vineyards on their holiday breakaway smallholding in a little town called Baardskeerdersbos. As the crow flies it is 47 km from our little house in L’Agulhas.
The label:
If you translate Baardskeerdersbos into English, it means “Beard-Shavers-Bush”, named after a famous spider that lives in these parts of the country. This spider builds its nest from human hair... and the myth goes that when you go to bed at night the Baardskeerder spider will climb into your bed and shave your beard for the construction of his home.
So I make wine from two different wines on Caroline’s property - B-BOS-1 and B-BOS-2.
I've had two different bottlings of this wine - initially I only bottled a small bit to test the market, but when it sold out on my first tasting, I immediately went onto a second bottling.
CULTIVARS: 100% Fernao Pires a.k.a Maria Gomez
VINEYARDS/COMPONENTS: 1
ORIGIN: SWARTLAND
If you drive on the road between Malmesbury and Darling, about halfway you turn right onto a little dirt road and drive for another 15 km until you reach the flatlands. This is where you will find this vineyard.
It looks like a desert out there. The topsoil is 30cm of white sand with an iron rich subsoil we in South Africa call Koffieklip - literally translated it would mean coffee soil. It got its name from the little pebbles in the soil that look like coffee beans surrounded by a clay rich iron saturated soil.
The vineyard has no irrigation and it is 39 years old with its roots deeply developed into the subsoil. For some reason the ground water level is high. I can only imagine that a shallow water vein runs through that specific section of the desert-like area, providing the deep roots a supply of water.
We make 2500 bottles of this very unique wine. It fermented spontaneously in larger French Oak vessels and aged for one year on the lees. Currently this wine is the only 100% Fernao Pirez in South Africa (that I’m aware of!).
The story of Kortpad Kaaptoe:
In August 2011, on a farm somewhere between Darling and Hopefield on the West Coast of South Africa, I was visiting a block of grapes, Carignan. I received a SMS from someone who needed me to be in Cape Town within the next hour. Being in the middle of nowhere, I asked the farmer the quickest way to Cape Town. In Afrikaans (one of the 11 official languages of South Africa), the "kortpad Kaaptoe". He said that I needed to drive towards the Carignan, past the Shiraz and Fernao Pirez....
"The FERNAO WHAT???", I asked him? "Fernao Pirez" he replied. Bush vines, unirrigated, planted by his grandfather 38 years before. So, on my shortest way to Cape Town (the "kortpad kaaptoe"), I found Fernao Pirez. A varietal I had never tasted wine of and something I never knew existed in South Africa. And that brings me to something so very important to me.
I love interesting, true stories. So if I find a story like this, a bit of family history stumbled upon on my shortest route to Cape Town, I want to tell that story, disguised as a bottle of wine. So it is not ONLY about the wine. In life everything needs to be seen in context. If you take things out of context, wine becomes one dimensional and boring in a way.
The label:
Linocut of AC/DC inspired font. Printed on real organics paper with as much gold bling as possible. Labels are hand applied with old-style wet glue technique. Please note that the label will slip off the bottle when it gets wet. The label is as natural as the wine inside the bottle.
CULTIVARS: Chenin blanc, Grenache Blanc, Viognier
ORIGIN: Wellington
Since it’s maiden vintage in 2007, this wine changed quite a lot. In 2007, it was a blend of Chardonnay, Chenin blanc and Viognier - 3 vineyards. Since 2018 vintage however, consists of 5 components - 3 Chenin blanc vineyards called Boberg, Spogblokand Draai-Draai as well as Grenache Blanc and Viognier.
-Boberg: This vineyard grows on top of the Groenberg mountain in Wellington in decomposed granite. It was an old neglected bush vine Chenin blanc vineyard that was recently resurrected and converted into an organically farmed parcel. For many years there were no irrigation, but from this year on we started irrigating a little bit. It is very dry on the mountain so this vineyard needs water, especially in these drought-stricken times.
-Spogblok: This vineyard grows below Boberg and is in the region of 60 years old. Due to the fact that it is a trellised vineyard, it is raised from the ground and can therefore handle its own herd of sheep. In 2018 it was a bit of a disaster, the sheep ate most of the leaves in the bunch zone. So the 2018 has no Spogblok in the final blend. It was substituted by a younger Chenin blanc vineyard growing on the Western side of the Groenberg. We call it block N. It is a younger conventional-farmed parcel and not something that we will keep on using.
-Draai-Draai: This vineyard is a trellised vineyard in a little valley on the western slope of the Boberg. It is a great component and produce extracted, dense full-bodied wines. It grows in decomposed granite and was also now converted into an organically farmed block. But this will only be effective from the 2019 vintage onwards.
These three Vineyards make up about 75% of the final blend.
-The next 20% is made up of a younger, organically farmed, irrigated Grenache Blanc vineyard on the lower slopes of the Groenberg. In 2018, we started to experiment with different fermentation styles. Specifically with the Grenache we tried some skin fermented parcels and it turned out really good - the idea is to add some tannin and texture to the final blend.
-And the last 5% of the wine is made up of a conventionally farmed Vineyard next to the Grenache.
All the components were fermented in old French Oak barrels 225, 300, 400 and 500L. Spontaneous fermentation with 1-year aged on the Lees. Moment of Silence is our largest production at present and we produced about 9000 bottles.
BLANKBOTTLE WEBSITE - SOUTH AFRICA
http://www.blankbottle.co.za/home
SWIG WEBSITE - UK
https://www.swig.co.uk/wines/blank-bottle-moment-of-silence-wellington-2018
Pieter Walser is a rare gem. He’s one of those humble people we can all too easily overlook, but to do so would be one of the biggest mistakes of your life. For not only is Pieter one of life’s genuine folk who will add salt to your life, he is bottling some of South Africa’s most beautiful wines.
Every one of Pieter’s wines is a story, rather than a grape variety, and it’s the juice inside the bottle which reveals that story. He doesn’t own any vines, but instead scours South Africa’s winelands for top-quality fruit that has somehow slipped under the radar, now sourcing from nearly 70 sites. Some years he’ll make 20 wines, other years 45. With the benefit of anonymity, variety and regional identity take a back seat while parcel expression does the driving. These are some of South Africa’s most original wines, made by one of South Africa’s most original winemakers.
Here is the story about B.I.G 2017
Pieter Walser is a rare gem. He’s one of those humble people we can all too easily overlook, but to do so would be one of the biggest mistakes of your life. For not only is Pieter one of life’s genuine folk who will add salt to your life, he is bottling some of South Africa’s most beautiful wines.
Every one of Pieter’s wines is a story, rather than a grape variety, and it’s the juice inside the bottle which reveals that story. He doesn’t own any vines, but instead scours South Africa’s winelands for top-quality fruit that has somehow slipped under the radar, now sourcing from nearly 70 sites. Some years he’ll make 20 wines, other years 45. With the benefit of anonymity, variety and regional identity take a back seat while parcel expression does the driving. These are some of South Africa’s most original wines, made by one of South Africa’s most original winemakers.
Here is the story about little William 2018
http://www.blankbottle.co.za/home
https://swig.co.uk/wines/blank-bottle-little-william-2016