Week Report - The new "Moment of Silence", new Chenin, Great White tasting and Parlotones white blend...

Monday 9 November 2009: Early morning off to Wellington. I am busy working on my new white blend: “Moment of Silence 2009”. The first “Moment of Silence 2007” was released February 2008 as an experiment under the BLANKbottle label. It was a blend between equal parts of barrel fermented Chardonnay, Chenin blanc and Viognier. It turned out to be just one of those fabulous wines that I would love to repeat. I therefore decided to separate the “Moment of Silence” from the rest of the BLANKbottle range and give it a personality and brand of its own. Beginning 2009 I selected grapes, worked with the viticulturist and winemaker and produced 3 batches of wine. These wines will go into the blend for the “Moment of Silence 2009”. The wines are all still in barrel and Monday morning was the first tasting in a long process in assembling the blend. I also drove through the vineyards with the viticulturist to get a feel for the 2010 harvest. We also looked at some new blocks of Chenin we will be experimenting with this year. Had a awesome morning in the vineyards. On my way back I picked up a pallet of wine from my warehouse and dropped it at my mom’s house. For those of you who don’t know, my mom, Alana, does my distribution. A few years back I bought her a computer as well as internet. She did the computer course at the University of the Third Age and she now monitors the orders and distribution of my wine deliveries.

After a quick stop at the office I met up with a new wine friend for a beer. The evening I wrote a short newsletter for my clients and went to bed early.

Tuesday 10 November 2009: I headed to the Simonsberg for a routine tasting and then again to Wellington to drop wine samples with a colleague. Later the afternoon we had a early dinner and wine tasting at a friend’s house high up in the Helderberg. He’s helping me with my the new “Moment of Silence 2009”.

Wednesday 11 November 2009: ANOTHER wine tasting. This time round to the Great White Tasting. There were 3 speakers on the day. Eben Sadie (SADIE Family vineyards), Peter Fischer (French wine maker) and Greg Sherwood (UK master of wine). We tasted fascinating international and local wines. After a great lunch and a media briefing I left to present a wine tasting at a wine club in Somerset west. We had a great time.

Thursday 12 November 2009: Was a long day. We are busy working on the new wine for the rock band, the Parlotones. We got together at the Cape Grace Hotel in the Waterfront and the band joined us as they arrived back from their world tour. Glen and Paul was stuck in Joburg, so it was Kahn and Neil that joined us for the blending. We tasted in the region of 60 wines and ultimately came up with something we all liked. Unfortunately I cannot give you any info on the wine at this stage. The only thing I can tell you is that the wine is completely different to anything you’ve tasted before. We still have work to do on the wine but so far so good. We waited in the Bascule bar for Glen and Paul to catch up and we all then headed for Headquaters, a restaurant in Cape Town. To make a very long story short, I arrived back home after 1 am. Allan Mullins (Head wine selector for Woolworths) joined us for the tasting and blending but then headed off to the launch party for the John Platter wine guide. During dinner he SMS’ed me . BLANKbottle JOEL 2008 and BLANKbottle The Spaniard 2007 both received 4 stars in the new John Platter. Can you believe it! I have never before presented my wines to tasting panels.

Friday 13 November: Caught up on some admin during the day and then, that evening, we had special seats booked for the PARLOTONES live at Grand West. We dropped the kids with my Parents-in-law and rocked like teenagers...