Tumbleweed Wild Sauvignon Blanc
£11.49
£15.32 per litre · incl. 20% VAT
Only 3 bottles left
World's Most Admired Wine Brands (2023)
Sauvignon Blanc with a sense of adventure. Bruce Jack pulls fruit from the cooler, sea-breezed corners of Swartland, Elim and the Overberg, then handles it gently to keep every aromatic detail intact. The result is a crisp, dry white with green-fruit lift, a flicker of tropical sweetness and a salty, mineral finish. Easy to love, hard to put down.
Not for sale to persons under 18. Adult signature required on delivery.
UK wide delivery
Our Verdict
We listed this because it does something genuinely uncommon: a Swartland-led Sauvignon Blanc that drinks with the precision of a cool-climate white but still carries a sun-warmed generosity underneath. Bruce Jack and Marlize Beyers have been working together for over two decades, and you can taste that experience in how restrained and clean this is. It's our pick for anyone who normally reaches for a Sancerre or a Marlborough Sauvignon and wants to try something with a bit more soul for the money. Stock comes in small batches, so when it's here, it's here.
Tasting Notes
Pour it cold and the glass fills with cut grass, green fig and a twist of grapefruit zest, with a saline lift that hints at those sea-facing vineyards. The palate runs lean and bright: gooseberry, passionfruit and underripe melon riding a spine of crisp, mouth-watering acidity. Fermentation in stainless steel keeps everything pure and unembellished, and because malolactic is blocked, that zippy freshness carries right through to a dry, mineral-edged finish that leaves you reaching for another sip.
Cut-Grass Lift
Classic Sauvignon green notes: freshly mown lawn, green fig leaf and a whisper of bell pepper that keeps the wine vivid and alert.
Tropical Brightness
Passionfruit and green melon give a sunlit core, balancing the herbaceous edge with just enough generosity to feel ripe rather than austere.
Grapefruit Zip
Pink grapefruit and lime pith drive the acidity, the kind of citrus snap that makes the wine taste cleaner with every sip.
About This Wine
If you think you know Swartland, this one will rearrange your assumptions. Most wines from this rugged stretch of the Cape are big-shouldered reds or textured Chenins, but Bruce Jack and Marlize Beyers have gone hunting for the cooler pockets, the maritime-influenced sites where Sauvignon Blanc can stay nervy and bright. They've blended fruit from those Swartland slopes with grapes from Elim and the Overberg, two of South Africa's coolest, most ocean-battered wine zones, and the result is a Sauvignon with real personality.
Expect a lifted nose of cut grass, gooseberry and elderflower, with grapefruit and passion fruit sitting just behind. The palate is dry, focused and crunchy, with a saline thread running through to a long, lemony finish. Only free-run juice goes into the tanks, fermentation is kept cool to lock in those aromatics, and malolactic is blocked so the acidity stays bright and the wine keeps its zip.
This is your warm-evening, garden-table, fish-and-chips wine. Pour it with grilled prawns, a Thai green curry, goat's cheese on toast, or a simple plate of crab linguine. It's also a brilliant aperitif, the kind of bottle you open while the others are still arriving.
Delivered to your door anywhere in the UK, well-chilled and ready to pop. If you're sending a thoughtful gift to a South African expat missing the Cape breeze, this one will earn you a phone call.
Food Pairing
This is a wine that loves the sea and the salad bowl. Pour it alongside grilled sardines, a plate of fish and chips with plenty of lemon, or a Thai green curry where the herbaceous notes echo the coriander and lime leaf. Goats' cheese on toast is a classic match. For something simpler, a summer salad with feta, watermelon and mint works brilliantly.
- —Grilled sardines with lemon and parsley
- —Goats' cheese tart with caramelised onion
- —Thai green chicken curry
- —Pan-fried sea bass with samphire
- —Watermelon, feta and mint salad
How to Serve
Temperature
Serve well-chilled, around 7-9°C. An hour in the fridge or twenty minutes in an ice bucket does the trick.
Decanting
No decanting needed. This is a wine built on freshness and aromatic lift, and a quick swirl in the glass releases everything you need. Pour straight from the bottle.
Glass
A smaller, tulip-shaped white wine glass concentrates the citrus and green-fruit aromas and keeps the wine cool.
Behind the Wine
Sauvignon Blanc from the cooler corners of the Cape lives or dies by the breeze. The fruit here comes from sites in Swartland, Elim and Overberg where the Atlantic muscles inland, slowing ripening and locking in acidity. Mediterranean summers do the heavy lifting on flavour, but those maritime nights keep everything taut and lifted. Hand-harvesting at the right moment is what gives this wine its signature tension: green-edged aromatics, tropical fruit underneath, and a saline thread that only coastal vineyards can deliver.
Ageing Potential
Drink this one young and fresh. Sauvignon Blanc in this crisp, stainless-steel style is built for the next year or two, when the citrus and green-fruit aromatics are at their most vivid. There is little to gain from cellaring; the joy here is in the lift and zip.
The Land
Vineyards sit on rolling hills facing the sea, mostly on deep red soils with sandy patches mixed in. The aspect catches the maritime influence head-on, while a mix of trellised and bush-vine plantings gives the winemaker different expressions to draw on. Cooler Elim and Overberg sites add lift and aromatic intensity to the Swartland core.
The Winemaking
Gentle handling is the watchword. Only free-run juice makes the cut, separated by gravity rather than pressure, then settled with plant-based fining agents through flotation. Fermentation happens in stainless steel at a cool 12-15°C, slow enough to preserve every nuance of citrus and green fruit. Malolactic is deliberately blocked to keep the acidity bright and the wine bone-dry. After fermentation, it rests on fine lees, picking up a subtle textural roundness before bottling. The result is precision: crisp, focused, unapologetically fresh.
The Swartland Region
Swartland, 'the black land' in Afrikaans, named for the renosterbos that darkens after rain, rolls out north of Cape Town across the hills around Malmesbury and Riebeek-Kasteel. It's hot, dry, and stubbornly characterful: a place of old bush vines, granite and koffieklip soils, and a community of growers who've made it the most quietly thrilling corner of South African wine. Concentration, freshness, and a wild streak you don't find elsewhere, that's Swartland in a glass.
About the Producer
Bruce Jack
Bruce Jack runs a small, tight-knit team out of South Africa, with head winemakers Bruce himself and Marlize Beyers working side by side for more than two decades. Between them they've made wine across several continents, but the through-line has always been authenticity, wines that taste of where they come from, made by people who actually know the vineyards. The 'Off the Charts' range, which the Tumbleweed wines belong to, is their love letter to South Africa's classic grape and region pairings, with labels nodding to the Basotho blanket and the wide, untamed landscapes of the Cape. Bruce Jack has appeared four years running in Drinks International's World's Most Admired Wine Brands, recognition the team has quietly earned, bottle by bottle.