2013 Blank Bottle, Confessions White Glove Chaser, Cab Sav, Stellenbosch
About this WINE
Blank Bottle
Blank Bottle was set up by Pieter Walser to make limited edition wines from intriguing parcels of grapes from growers across the Western Cape in South Africa. Pieter met Dok Gary van Wyk at a surfing competition in 2010 and enjoyed a wine there made from his grapes, leading to this collaboration.
Cabernet Sauvignon
The most famous red wine grape in the world and one of the most widely planted.
It is adaptable to a wide range of soils, although it performs particularly well on well-drained, low-fertile soils. It has small, dusty, black-blue berries with thick skins that produce deeply coloured, full-bodied wines with notable tannins. Its spiritual home is the Médoc and Graves regions of Bordeaux where it thrives on the well-drained gravel-rich soils producing tannic wines with piercing blackcurrant fruits that develop complex cedarwood and cigar box nuances when fully mature.
The grape is widely planted in California where Cabernet Sauvignon based wines are distinguished by their rich mixture of cassis, mint, eucalyptus and vanilla oak. It is planted across Australia and with particular success in Coonawarra where it is suited to the famed Terra Rossa soil. In Italy barrique aged Cabernet Sauvignon is a key component in Super Tuscans such as Tignanello and Sassicaia, either on its own or as part of a blend with Sangiovese.
When is a wine ready to drink?
We provide drinking windows for all our wines. Alongside the drinking windows there is a bottle icon and a maturity stage. Bear in mind that the best time to drink a wine does also depend on your taste.
Not ready
These wines are very young. Whilst they're likely to have lots of intense flavours, their acidity or tannins may make them feel austere. Although it isn't "wrong" to drink these wines now, you are likely to miss out on a lot of complexity by not waiting for them to mature.
Ready - youthful
These wines are likely to have plenty of fruit flavours still and, for red wines, the tannins may well be quite noticeable. For those who prefer younger, fruitier wines, or if serving alongside a robust meal, these will be very enjoyable. If you choose to hold onto these wines, the fruit flavours will evolve into more savoury complexity.
Ready - at best
These wines are likely to have a beautiful balance of fruit, spice and savoury flavours. The acidity and tannins will have softened somewhat, and the wines will show plenty of complexity. For many, this is seen as the ideal time to drink and enjoy these wines. If you choose to hold onto these wines, they will become more savoury but not necessarily more complex.
Ready - mature
These wines are likely to have plenty of complexity, but the fruit flavours will have been almost completely replaced by savoury and spice notes. These wines may have a beautiful texture at this stage of maturity. There is lots to enjoy when drinking wines at this stage. Most of these wines will hold in this window for a few years, though at the very end of this drinking window, wines start to lose complexity and decline.
Buying options
Add to wishlist
Description
The wine that treads the line between “creative” and “legal”
Pieter Walser dreamed of the ideal winery – a house amidst rolling vineyards – but, having studied winemaking for seven years, took an alternative path. He set up a wine brand called BLANK bottle.
“You can’t judge it by the label,” he says. “It’s not bound to a specific wine area or style, it’s from many different vineyards scattered across the Western Cape of South Africa; different regions, microclimates and soil types that ultimately lead to different wine styles driven by quality.”
Perhaps you could call it the Brewdog of the wine world. Without a huge budget, he decided to take a “creative” approach to sourcing the increasingly popular Bordeaux varietals by identifying where teams of consultants, hired by other producers, were analysing vineyards – and he tracked them. “Where they buy Cab, I buy right next to them. It’s that simple,” he says. Not only does the wine name say it all, but the results also speak for themselves.
An intense nose of red and black cherries is complemented by hints of vanilla and spice. The wine is incredibly juicy and pure with a mineral, gravel note adding complexity whilst a hint of tar and toast completes the warm, fruity finish. A slight herbaceous edge adds freshness and the tannins are fine yet assertive. Pieter Walser manages to achieve impressive concentration in all of his wines and, regardless of its surprisingly medium weight, this is no exception.
Catriona Felstead MW - Wine Buyer
wine at a glance
Delivery and quality guarantee