As Pieter writes, “a classic Swartland style white blend. It is a joint venture between Swartland loyalist Albert Ahrens and the BLANKbottle philosophy. A blend of Chenin, Chardonnay, Viognier, Clairette and some other interesting stuff. The grapes are from the Paardeberg in the Swartland”. There’s some Roussanne, Marsanne and Grenache Blanc in this too, and the closest point of comparison in taste is probably to a top Roussillon white. Toasty nose, with nuances of honey, flowers and Indian spice. Quite weighty, with subtle stone fruit. Irony and mineral too. Fascinating, great food wine. "Old Swartland fruit but reductive and honeyed and interesting. Fades a little suddenly but very good. 17/20" - Jancis Robinson MW on www.jancisrobinson.com, 2nd Dec 2011. Now-2013

Product Code: BBO309

Pieter Walser is a phenomenom: never before have we met anyone who does everything - from picking grapes to selling his own wine - by himself. For the last seven years he has been making tiny batches, usually only 2-5,000 bottles, of high quality wines. He sources the grapes from friends and contacts, usually in the Swartland; he supervises the picking (sometimes just passing through a vineyard and picking the bunches he wants, before the owner picks); he makes the wines in the cellars of two or three friends; he designs the labels himself; and sells the wine direct to consumers in South Africa from his own website. There he has built up a cult following. Needless to say we are the first to ship his wines to these shores.

What Pieter loves is the opportunity to work with a wide range of grape varieties: as he says, it’s “not about stylistic winemaking philosophies, but all about different varieties”. More from Pieter: “we pick certain varietals as “treble” components and other as “base” components. We then focus not on the varietal as such, but on the specific contributing factors of that wine to the final blend”. He is also very careful not to over-employ new barrels: he likes the oak just “polishing the fruit”. From a terrific tasting (at any moment Pieter has a number of different blends on the go) we chose four wines. Two have the word “Black” in their title, a translation of “Swart”, as in Swartland.