Tasting Notes
Now here's one we haven't seen for a few years! Hinterhofkabuff means backyard shack in Afrikaans. This wine was inspired by an interviewer who described Pieter Walser's office as that exact phrase - a shack! Not wanting to draw attention to this faux pas, Pieter named a wine after it, a pure Riesling aged in clay amphora and barrel. With a hint of petrol, and pineapple pastilles over crushed rocks, this is floral and quite powerful and will age well. Pieter commented how the 2012 is drinking beautifully now, 10 years on. He also likes to remind us with all South African Rieslings, "my aim is not to imitate German Rieslings - my aim is to capture South African sunlight!"
More Info
The tale behind the name BLANKbottle is that when Pieter was starting out, he made a small parcel of Shiraz and was left with a few unlabelled cases. One day, a woman wanted to buy a wine – “Anything but Shiraz,” she told him. Pieter shrugged and sold her the unlabelled Shiraz, neglecting to mention the variety. A few weeks later she returned demanding more, saying it was the best thing she’d ever drunk. For Pieter, it was a lesson on the gap between what people think they like (or dislike) and what they actually like (or dislike). After that, he decided not to list the varieties on his labels. Every one of Pieter’s wines is a story, rather than a grape variety, and it’s the juice inside the bottle which reveals that story. He doesn’t own any vines, but instead scours South Africa’s winelands for top-quality fruit that has somehow slipped under the radar, now sourcing from nearly 70 sites. Some years he’ll make 20 wines, other years 35. With the benefit of anonymity, variety and regional identity take a back seat while parcel expression does the driving. These are some of South Africa’s most original wines, made by one of South Africa’s most original winemakers.