PSEUDONYM

Smoked duck salad, bougie cheese toasties, cumin-spiced lamb

Can stand a lil’ chill

So much of our approach to wine has been inspired by Pieter Walser and his BLANKbottle wines – where the bottles typically don’t show the varietal to avoid any preconceived ideas about what people think they like and don’t like when it comes to wines. “You can’t judge it by the label; it takes drinking a whole bottle to get to know the wine.” He also designs those labels.

While he doesn’t own any vineyards of his own, Pieter makes sure to work only with winegrowers who are farming with care, attention and intention; and he drives thousands of kilometers across South Africa every year to reach these people to source the exceptional fruit for his wines. Once the wines make it back to his cellar, Pieter is meticulous in his winemaking – not adding or removing anything…while sometimes also being a little off the wall.

As with any of Pieter’s wines, it comes with a great story! The grower Pieter buys the grapes for this wine from, in an attempt to avoid his neighbour trying to steal his clients, invented a pseudonym for Pieter – he dubbed him the jam maker from Strand (where Pieter lives in South Africa).

Place: Darling, Western Cape, South Africa
Grape: Cinsault
Style: Serious fun
Ingredients: Grapes, minimal sulphur