Tasting Notes
A wine we haven't seen for many a year now - JCB, named in honour of the driver and his JCB who saved Pieter many years before on getting stuck loaded down with a trailer of grapes. Pure Sauvignon with 25% skin contact, JCB is a unique expression of the grape - some white pepper, kiwi and passionfruit cream, icing sugar dusted greengage pastries, sun ripened yellow peppers and iodine freshness, finishing with a little dried mango, a creamy leesiness and dash of salt.
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The tale behind the name BLANKbottle is that when Pieter was starting out, he made a small parcel of Shiraz and was left with a few unlabelled cases. One day, a woman wanted to buy a wine – “Anything but Shiraz,” she told him. Pieter shrugged and sold her the unlabelled Shiraz, neglecting to mention the variety. A few weeks later she returned demanding more, saying it was the best thing she’d ever drunk. For Pieter, it was a lesson on the gap between what people think they like (or dislike) and what they actually like (or dislike). After that, he decided not to list the varieties on his labels. 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 35. 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.