South Africa ( Somerset West, South Africa )
Close to the beach of Summerset West
Pieter’s first love was surfing and it was when he was in his mid 20´s that he realised that it was time to find a profession that would support him for the following 60 years at least. Stellenbosch University offered him the chance to study winemaking and very early he started in a shed making his own wine. When one day he got a distressed call from the owner of that place telling him that there where around 10 police men searching the place and looking for him.
Pieter soon realised that he hadn't declared and paid any alcohol tax and thought that this was the end of his career that hadn’t even started.
The result was that all wine on the premises was confiscated and the young entrepreneur was out of stock when the next day a lady knocked on his door that had heard through word of mouth that he had great wine. “But I don’t like Shiraz” she said. Problem was that customs had confiscated all but 3 boxes of Shiraz which they had overlooked in his kitchen. He poured a glass hiding the label and the customers eyes lit up with delight. “What a wonderful wine” she exclaimed. “Yes, true and its 100% Shiraz” Pieter replied.
He had two learnings from this episode. One, pay your taxes and secondly, more important many of us had a wine we really disliked and presume that all wines of that varietal are not for us. This episode gave the name of the winery Blank Bottle.
To describe Blanc Bottle in one sentence: Clothes maketh not the man judge your wine on what is in the bottle and not on what is written on the label. Peter makes in some years more than 50 different wines from which h 90% are discontinued the next. Some because the grapes were not available some because harvests turned out to be not what he expected. As Blank Bottle doesn’t have any vines of its own Pieter spends each year thousands of kilometres driving in search of grapes. The stories he experiences on that way often give names to the wines.
Pieter started in 2004 with a couple of barrels in a place a German reporter called a “Hinterhofkabuff” a German derogatory word for a shag. Last year he sourced 165 Tons of grapes from 80 vineyards. He saw not owning your own grapes as a handicap in the beginning but now he enjoys the freedom of not being limited to a certain region.
He is one of the most creative and committed makers we know. Every wine has his own story and can be read on his web page. He designs all the labels by himself and sees his wines in a very holistic way
Asked what he loves most about his job is “Being able to tell stories through wine” something we at Wine Merchants understand well.
By the way he didn’t take offence to the description of his winery as a Hinterhofkabuff, he named a wine after it!
