Little William

Beef, Lamb, Game (deer, venison), Poultry

BLANKbottle has broken just about every mould there is with close to 40 different wines produced every year and almost half of them never to be repeated. No label bares information about grape varietal(s) or blend. It all started in 2004 when a lady came to Pieter to buy some wine and asked for anything but Shiraz. “I don’t drink Shiraz” were her exact words. Pieter poured her a glass of wine. She loved it and bought 3 cases. It was 100% Shiraz. Pieter says: “It’s true, we do judge a book by its cover”. This is why Walser only indicates whether the bottle is red or white – he never gives mention to the grape varietal(s). “I want nothing on my labels”.

750 meters above sea-level Ceres Plateaux grapes in sandstone soil. Vines trained according to the vertical shoot positioning method on a traditional 3 wire trellis system.

Aged in various vessels, older and some new oak for 12 months, blended and bottled.

The grapes were picked at optimal ripeness and cooled overnight to 4 degrees celsius. The next morning the grapes were hand sorted. It fermented in 2 lots. One as whole clusters in an open top fermenter and the other as whole clusters in a submerged cap closed fermenter. The juice underwent spontaneous fermentation and stayed on the skins for as long as possible.