The story of PAT BIRD:
Back in 2017, Theo-Donald (TD), a filmmaker and lifelong fellow surfer from the Strand, approached me to see if he could possibly film me for something short, wine related. I wasn’t sure if I was his guy, but I invited him to jump into my bakkie.
3 years and plenty of km’s later he got out of the bakkie with a 30-min documentary about BLANKBOTTLE called EPILEPTIC INSPIRATION on a memory stick. Some filmmakers from the US had heard of the film and stopped by the cellar. They watched it and before you could say “Yank”, my winery was full of them. They wanted to do business… One month later Theo-Donald and I were sitting on a plane to Hollywood – all expenses paid. Arriving at the airport in Los Angeles, a girl in an orange Jeep picked us up. It was ours to drive while there.
The next 5 days were crazy. I could write a book… Their idea was to show the film to various investors and role players in Hollywood, promoting the possibility of a wine-related series with Epileptic Inspiration as the pilot program. Just to warm up we screened the film in their film studio in downtown LA. The next morning we surfed Malibu on longboards and then a whirlwind of events coincided with insider local connections to all. Not really my cup of tea, but “what the heck!” I thought – while in LA, do as they do. We saw a live recording of Idols, attended a proper American house party (plastic cups, pink drinks and all) and surfed a bucket list surf break called Trestles in San Clemente. We ate at great restaurants and celebrity hangout private clubs, met loads and loads of big money investor producers and, of course, a fair amount of desperate actors looking for a gap to start a career in celebrity-ism.
Besides the fact that I surfed Trestles, my 2 personal highlights of the trip were screenings of our film at a venue on the most famous Hollywood street – Sunset Boulevard – and another screening at a private residence in Beverly Hills – and I mean the hills of Beverly hills – proper.
James, my importer from Chicago, jumped on a plane to come help protect our BLANKBOTTLE business interests in a country with WAY different value systems when it comes to hardcore business deals. After the first negotiations we dubbed him B-2 bomber (could also have been a nice name for the wine).
Which brings me to PAT BIRD. Every time a screening ended, everybody in the room would approach me to chat. What nobody of course realised, was that TD was the man behind the camera, and as a result he got very little attention. B-2 Bomber also went undetected, just circling the scene. Now TD’s uncle is a keen movie man, but he had one weakness – names; with his most famous faux pas calling Brad Pitt, PAT BIRD. It was at one of these screenings when TD started calling me PAT BIRD and of course it stuck.
For years B-2 Bomber (my American agent) had been bugging me to make a 100% Petit Verdot – one of his all time favourite varieties. So a few years later, I saw it fit to call this Helderberg Petit Verdot PAT BIRD. The label is a spray-painted outline of Pat, TD and B2 Bomber on a Hollywood star – inspired by a picture taken of us at the private residence Beverly Hills spot.
The wine – The Syrah of Bordeaux varietals. Perfumy and fresh, produced from 2 different sites. A super lower-Helderberg, decomposed granite property combined with a heavier, more extracted site in the Blaauwklippen Valley.
To mix it up – EPILEPTIC Inspiration 2022 – Picked a bit later than the 2021 – 100% single vineyard Elgin Sémillon.
