Blanc de blanc, explained, and what to drink next

The same clean lines, without the bubbles

If what you love about a blanc de blancs is purity, one white grape speaking plainly, you don't need bubbles to find it. You need a grower who resists the urge to dress the wine up.

The Piekenierskloof Grenache Blanc is that wine. Dryland bush vines, never irrigated, growing on koffieklip and sandy loam that force roots down and keep bunches small and intense. Warm days and genuinely cool mountain nights on the plateau let the fruit ripen slowly while hanging on to its natural acidity, which is exactly the trick a cool-climate sparkling base wine pulls off.

Only the free-run juice is used, the gentlest fraction, fermented slowly at fifteen degrees with a selected yeast to keep the citrus and floral aromatics intact. Four months in third- and fourth-fill French oak follows, well-used barrels chosen precisely because they add a little texture and roundness without leaving any obvious oak flavour.

It behaves like a good blanc de blancs at the table, too. Oysters with a squeeze of lemon, pan-fried scallops, a goat's cheese and herb tart on an October evening when you want something bright against the dark. The style sits squarely in the restrained, old-vine tradition of the Swartland and the mountains above it.

When you want texture as well as tension

Not every white in this family is all angles. The best blanc de blancs sparklers age into something creamy and broad while keeping their acid spine, and a still white can do the same thing with barrel and lees instead of bottle age.

The Coterie by Wildeberg Chenin Blanc Grenache Blanc 2023 is the one to reach for. The Chenin comes from a low-yielding Franschhoek vineyard of old bush vines that ripen slowly and give concentration in small quantities; the Grenache Blanc, from warmer, arid slopes in Paarl, brings jasmine perfume and a flicker of white spice.

Both parts ferment on their own wild yeasts in six-hundred-litre French barrels (second and third fill), then rest six months on lees. Coarse filtration only. That's a hands-off recipe designed to build texture rather than flavour, which is why the wine feels rounded without tasting of wood.

Serve it at 10 degrees, not straight from the back of the fridge, or you'll flatten the perfume. It has the weight for a Cape Malay chicken curry with yellow rice, and it is lovely with a Sunday roast chicken finished with tarragon and crème fraîche.

If you're curious about where this style goes next, the Cape white shelf is the place to wander: granite-grown Sauvignon at one end, old-vine Chenin at the other, and a lot of quiet character in between. Our South African whites are all here, delivered across the UK.