False Bay 'Windswept' Sauvignon Blanc 2025

This is a highly accomplished wine for the price and probably one of our best value Sauvignon Blancs. The grapes come from two vineyards in the Stellenbosch wine region only a few miles from the ocean so the constant cool sea breezes give great natural acidity to the wine (and means the 'Windswept' name is very apt). It's fresh and zesty with grassy and dry bay leaf aromatics which lead onto a pleasingly restrained palate with good mineral and zesty citrus flavours with hints of green pepper and grass.

Just the sort of thing to go with a host of Mediterranean dishes, or with Chinese squid or Thai fish dishes.

Named after South Africa's most iconic bay, which frames much of the country's premium winelands, False Bay Vineyards was founded in 1994 by Paul Boutinot who came to the Western Cape to seek out and rescue grapes from old, under-appreciated vineyards that were destined to be lost in the large co-operative blends that were dominating South Africa's wine industry back then. Somewhat ahead of his time, Paul transformed these gems into wines with a minimum of intervention: wild yeast ferments, no acid additions etc. It's a familiar story to many 'real wine' lovers now, but back then he was swimming against the tide. And even today, making wine this way at the modest price-level they ask for their wines is not something you'll come across too often.