In every field there are mavericks determined to reinvent the wheel, trailblazers willing to ask questions no one else will. In 2012, South African winemaker Travis Braithwaite gave himself a new challenge. What might happen, he wondered, if he tried blending the best grapes in the world into a single global cuvée? This preposterous spark of an idea led Braithwaite on an around the world odyssey. And now he’s bottled the result, combining five grape varieties from four different continents, into a remarkable new wine—the first global collectible red.
The whole notion goes against everything that’s sacred in the wine world these days, the obsession with locality, terroir, expressing a real sense of place, with the best winemakers hunting for ever smaller vineyard sites. Wouldn’t mixing grapes from different countries strip out all personality and its distinctive terroir? Braithwaite thought otherwise, pursuing a unicorn creation—a Bordeaux blend that would highlight, he says, the terroir of planet Earth.
To begin his wine project, he traveled halfway around the world, from his home outside Cape Town to Argentina, where he hoped to convince the world’s most celebrated wine blender to join his endeavor, meeting with Frenchman Michel Rolland at his wine estate in the Mendoza region. Rolland has orchestrated blends in 23 countries over the past 50 years. “It took me days to muster the courage to bring up my idea,” Braithwaite admits. “Finally on the fourth day, Michel asked me why I had come to see him. And once he heard ‘world blend,’ he took it on as the ultimate challenge.”
Rolland was captivated by the idea. “I am a serious guy, but I am the craziest blender in the world,” he says. “Blending two varieties is easier, three is complicated, four or five is a nightmare, to find the best synergy between grapes. You don’t know the result. It could be a disaster.”
The pair set out on a yearlong investigation choosing the wine regions where various varieties thrived best: focusing on Cabernet Sauvignon from Napa, Merlot from Bordeaux, Petit Verdot from Spain, Cabernet Franc from South Africa, and Malbec from Argentina.
Rolland decided to do the final blend and bottling in Napa, where he spends every September consulting with wine estate clients. Wines from the various countries were shipped to him there, as he tasted through everything to create the Pangaea blend. The first vintage, 2015, with 2,250 bottles, was released globally last year. Priced at $500 on release, it became an instant collectible, with prices quickly soaring online. “Pangaea is meant for collectors,” says Rolland. “A collector is always looking for what’s the latest wine to show his friends and drink out of curiosity.”
The second vintage—in a 2,700 bottle edition—was showcased this summer with much fanfare at Vinexpo Asia in Singapore. The first bottles were released this fall. The standard purchase unit is three bottles in a wooden case for $1,500. The garnet-hued Pangaea 2016 has aromas of rose, vanilla and spice with an intense slate minerality. This powerful yet harmonious wine, with its fine tannins and flavors of strawberries, black cherries and plums, is in fact a remarkable testament to the terroir of planet Earth.
