For as long as I can remember, I’ve been wondering about the measure for true success. To backtrack a bit, my life in wine started in 1993, when I finished at the Boland Agricultural High School and started a diploma in Agriculture at Elsenburg College in Stellenbosch, South Africa. After completing that, a harvesting season at a Stellenbosch winery followed and the rest of the year was spent on my, then lifelong dream of just surfing for a whole year!
With that dream in the bag, I took off for London to take the European Wine World by storm. That turned out to be much easier said than done, and resulted in an interesting detour in London of almost 2 years. Instead of picking grapes in France, my first job in London turned out to be on a rubbish dump. Some work as a warehouse sweeper and a construction man followed, until I finally landed a fantastic position as IT Assistant manager at the BBC drama department (despite the fact that I didn't know where to switch the computer on at the time - safe to say I learnt quickly). I also spent time travelling the Philippines, Indonesia and Europe. So finally, in 1998 I took off to France to work at a boutique wine estate with winemaker Jean-Luc Meckert. After several months of travelling to absorb the culture and tradition of French wine production, I jetted to South Africa for a harvest and then to the USA’s Napa Valley, where I worked at Cakebread Cellars. A vivid dream in November 1999 made me realize that if I wanted to be at the peak of the game it would require further study, so it was back to the books for a Bachelor of Science degree in Agriculture, Viticulture and Oenology (winemaking) at the University of Stellenbosch. In my second year I started my own business on the side, trying to export some wine to the UK, but lost a bit of money there. I then started to do wine related research for big export companies. After a few financial breakthroughs in my third year at University, I took the gap to start my own little winery in a friend's single garage. At the time, I was still dreaming of the perfect winery, perfect farm, perfect house. In 2004, I graduated at University and started the wine brand BLANKbottle. It started off tongue-in-cheek as I never intended it to be a serious wine brand. At the time, I was fed up of tasting wines with fancy labels and wanted to create a wine brand that you could judge only on quality, not looks. People like to label me. Some say I’m a winemaker, or an IT guy, or a marketer, or surfer, an actor, garagist, négociant, an entrepreneur, whatever! I prefer not to carry a label. To be honest, I won’t know what to label myself with. It’s like BLANKbottle - it’s just a BLANK bottle. You can’t judge it by the label. It takes drinking a whole bottle to get to know the wine. BLANKbottle is not bound to a specific wine area or wine style. It’s from many different vineyards, scattered across the Western Cape of South Africa, different regions, micro-climates, soil types, and ultimately leads to different wine styles. It is driven by quality, adventure, excitement and mystery. And at the centre of it all, are the guys in the vineyards, viticulturists, winemakers, family, friends and BLANKbottle fans.
So, what started as a back road, turned out to be my life's highway. I’ve come to realize that the road I’m on does not necessarily lead to the perfect winery. Rather, it’s an adventure, it gives me stories to tell, and that, I count as my true riches and success.
Pieter H. Walser - CEO, Founder, Winemaker & driver for BLANKbottle Wines.
