a barrel of 130 year old Muscat
Most people start their first job the year after finishing their studies. Others venture overseas in the hope of finding opportunities and fortune. I surfed. For a year. Much to the disgust of my dad! I was therefore a bit of a slow starter when in came to what most people refer to as a career. I’ve always been driven by what I like doing rather than what makes economical sense. For me personally, this has been an utterly rewarding, and at the same time, extremely time consuming, process.
In school, college and university I was taught that technology improves pretty much everything in life. This might be true in most areas of life, but when it comes to quality, a different set of rules apply. Now, 6 years after finishing Varsity, my reality is that the further I move away from technology, the better my wines become. In fact, my journey in the wine world has, contrary to my expectations, lead backwards: down the historic path of exploring ancient techniques and processes.
Having to make sense of all the opinions and options presented to me on a daily basis at BLANKbottle, I’ve been searching for the common thread that runs through all winemaking processes. And I discovered TIME. I mean, who doesn’t prefer bread baked in a wood-fired oven to the ready-sliced, low-GI, supermarket alternative?!
Now I’m not necessarily saying that the longer it takes to make a wine, the better the wine becomes. I’m simply saying that rushing processes in wine production simply doesn’t improve the wine quality. When I am presented with a challenge in the production phase, I’ll normally take the longer-route solution. Most of the time, it turns out to be the best choice for the wine. A recent example is our new white blend “The White BLACK 2009”. All the juice was fermented naturally, with only the wild yeasts native to its terroir. The alternative would be to ferment it with added yeast, which would ensure a flawless, quick and safe fermentation – but we took the longer route with some of the barrels still fermenting after months. The result? Buy a mixed case here and try it for yourself…