Stormhoek Wine

I always like reading about South African wines doing well abroad, so I was pleased to recently stumble upon a new South African winery's blog : Stormhoek Wine
(Their name can be translated as "Storm Corner". They seem to be near Wellington, which is very close to where my mom lives in the Western Cape...)

What makes them interesting is:

• They're all about freshness. Unoaked, fresh, crisp whites are their focus. (They also make a Sangiovese Merlot though). I like this snippet from their website:

new zealand has the best tech for making white wine. but south africa has better
grapes. so obviously the "hacker" thing to do was to move the tech over to south
africa and see what happens. voila! stormhoek. "freshness matters."

• This blog entry describes their freshness philosphy and the science behind it. Now I know what "reductively made wine" is...
• They use screwcaps (exclusively it seems). This is part of their focus on freshness - reducing the oxidation and risk of wine spoiling from contaminants in the cork.
  Speaking of screwtops, the nicest one I've seen yet is from Aussie: The Zork. You get the satisfying "pop" of a cork, and can easily re-seal your bottle.
• They blog actively. They have tried to use the "blogosphere" to do some disruptive marketing of their wines. A nice example: they sent a few hundred bottles of wine as free gifts to bloggers around the world, without any strings attached. Many of the bloggers posted reviews of the wine, which ended up doubling their sales in less than a year! I say kudos to them!
• So far, they seem to be doing very well in the UK.

I haven't seen their stuff on sale in the US, but maybe Garagiste or Esquin will find a US importer?