Monday a friend of mine, Albert, and myself met early morning and headed off to the Swartland to rack 2 new wines from barrel. We are doing a joint venture for BLANKbottle . It was a long day of pumping wine from barrel to tank and transporting the wine from Malmesbury to Stellenbosch
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Tuesday The BOSS asked me to join him for the following three days in the search for possible rock stars of the wine industry. We started off in Riebeeck Kasteel on one of the hottest days of the summer. Driving through some spectacular vineyards the temperature rose to 45°C. We met up with a very interesting young winemaker, enjoyed a fabulous lunch at cafe
Wednesday we met in Noordhoek and had lunch at the Food Barn with an alternative Lone Ranger who makes fabulous wines. We ended the day with Duncan Savage at Cape point Vineyards, tasting all his new Sauvignon blanc’s from barrel. He opened Sauvignon blanc’s which was up to 5 years old and it was absolutely perfect.
Thursday we were back in Malmesbury travelling through the Paardeberg where we had lunch with Adi Badenhorst and then met up with Eben Sadie. Altogether three days of great wines and many inspiring conversations.
Friday Albert and myself bottled two new wines for BLANKbottle . Albert is an expert when it comes to the Swartland. He knows all the best Vineyards and has great contacts. It’s a new area for BLANKbottle and that’s why I need the help of a friend. The wines are both fascinating and I hope to release it by middle 2010.
Week 2 was spent in the office in front of my Big White Board…planning! (the 2010 vintage, bottling, packaging, release dates, newsletters etc etc…) For me, the foundation of all business is Administration, if that’s not in order I’m unable to be creative. So, I’ve learnt to embrace Administration. In the end it saves you a heck of a lot of money. The end of that week we racked the new Moment of Silence 2009 from barrel into tank. The final blend was made up of four 225l barrels of Chardonnay, two 300 L barrels of Chenin blanc and one barrel Viognier.
Week 3 was spent preparing the Moment of Silence 2009 for bottling as it underwent stabilisation. I also travelled extensively to all the Vineyards. We had quite a lot of wind damage in one of the Chardonnay blocks, so we ended up changing to another area within the same block. We also identified a new block of Chenin blanc we will be experimenting with for the 2010 vintage. Although it’ll be an experiment in 2010, I am pretty confident that we will get excellent wine from that block. Albert and I did some planning. We will be producing 2 new wines for the 2010 vintage, but more on that at a later stage.
The last week of January was spent bottling the new Moment of Silence 2009. Again I went to visit all the Vineyards. I also worked with my designers on the labels for my new range of wines. I will go into detail once I release the wine but what I am doing now is quite exciting and a bit different to what BLANKbottle clients are used to. An interesting year to come, for sure!