Epileptic Inspiration 2014

"Epileptic Inspiration? You have no respect!", a Swiss guy told me on a recent trip to Zurich. Since the beginning of BLANKbottle, I have been designing my own labels. At first, it was because there was absolutely no way I could afford designers. I made use of Microsoft Word, typed BLANKbottle, placed it into a block and played around with the colours - no designing skills required at all.

Over the years, however, I started embracing the opportunity of being able to create this crucial aspect of the final product. And, to be honest, for the first 10 years I actually wasn't particularly fond of my own labels (besides maybe the honesty of it). Every year, I would again have to fight off the desire to employ professional label designers.

For those of you who don't know this: I have epilepsy which only manifested itself in my 30's. It's controlled by medication, but I absolutely hate taking pills. So I was very relieved when the Dr said I could go off my medication a year or so after my first and only seizure. Then, in November 2013, whilst not on medication, I had another huge epileptic fit. So the Dr booked me off driving and surfing, yet again. Now after a seizure like this, I normally, at first, lose most of my memory. My long term memory returns quite soon but my short-term analytical memory takes about 2-3 months to return - if at all. But I discovered a huge upside to this: financial pressures and other stress factors disappears together with the rest of my short term memory! To put it simply: when I couldn’t remember what I had to stress about, it blew my creative side right open. (don't ask me if this makes any medical sense...it has just been my experience!)

And it was during that time of short-term memory loss that I started to design my new labels for the 2013 wines. This time not using the computer, but rather making use of scissors, paint, Lino, pencil and old paper. And the result: I think I had a breakthrough in design, inspiration of Epileptic proportions. I have also since discovered how much I enjoy drawing and painting, something I never knew I liked! I am not saying it is great nor am I saying that it is better than my previous ones. All I am saying is that I LOVE IT! All of them… I think I have 27 labels (wines) for 2015.

So the story has nothing to do with the wine - a straight Semillon from Elgin. I am not a fan of greener Semillon and therefore concentrate on picking the grapes when it was ripe. The juice got no sulphur before fermentation, no acid, enzymes etc. It settled overnight and went to old wood, spontaneously fermented and stayed a year in barrel on the lees and was then bottled.