
Nothing to Declare 2016
This is the release of NOTHING TO DECLARE 2016 - a textured, spicy white blend, consisting of a mighty line-up of 9 varietals - mostly stuff you have never heard off and varietals I wish not to disclose at this stage. The StoryThis first vintage of this wine was in 2014. It was well-received (read what THE WORLD OF FINE WINE had to say). In 2015, I stuffed it up completely and sold all in bulk for “recycling”. In 2016, everything worked out and this is the result.
The Story of Nothing to Declare:
In the olden days, before our borders were opened for regular business, some of our leading winemakers at the time travelled to wine producing areas they admired. They mostly focused on areas with similar climatical/growing conditions to ours. Whenever they stumbled upon great wines made from varietals not grown in South Africa, they would try and get their hands on some clean plant material and (being of the less patient/more dynamic type) simply smuggled these vines into the country.
They used various techniques, one of them being… tie it to your leg, drop your pants to cover it and walk through the NOTHING TO DECLARE section at the airport as if you have… NOTHING TO DECLARE - you know the feeling…
Back in SA they would then reproduce and plant little vineyards, do trials on them and plant larger ones (to state the obvious: this was completely illegal, distributing diseases being the main risk). I, however, have seen first-hand that the type of farmer who went through all the effort to do this, is almost without fail completely passionate, super psyched-up, forward-thinking farmers/winemakers - serious producers. So they would, without a doubt, bring in clean, great quality vines.
Nothing to Declare is a tribute to these vine smugglers. Providing us, the new generation winemakers, the foundation to take this industry to new heights.
The Label: I did a chalk drawing on the one side of one of the barrels - an image of vine cuttings tied to a man’s leg, about to be covered by his pants. After a few months, the image faded. To solidify the image, I engraved it into the wood like it was done in the olden days. So in February 2015, after bottling the first vintage, I needed a label. I bought printing ink and applied it to the surface of the carved image. I then placed a large piece of paper on it and made a print, which became the main image for the label for NOTHING TO DECLARE. The image captures the essence and spirit of the true origin of many of our leading grape varietals, Chardonnay being the most well known one.
Technical InformationVintage: 2016How to orderPlease note
Due to the many small batches of wines we make, availability changes on a daily basis. Please email aneen@blankbottle.co.za if you’d like to order any of our wines or if you are looking for a specific wine, and she will reply with a list of wines now selling. If the wine you are looking for is sold out, we could suggest some alternative excitement and/or we could also put together a unique selection for you.
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