“The Globe Sauvignon Blanc embodies the forward-thinking spirit of Diemersdal Estate, it exemplifies the innovative legacy of the Louw family, marking a milestone as the first South African wine to be fermented and matured in a unique 220-liter glass globe.
“This entirely neutral vessel preserves the pure essence of the terroir, delivering unparalleled varietal expression. Great wine is timeless, reflecting the Louw family’s dedication to upholding Diemersdal’s trusted legacy with visionary flair.”
Overlooking the obvious misspelling of litre, there’s a lot to unpack from the back label of Durbanville wine estate Diemersdal’s newly released wine, The Globe. First, it’s not just breaking a boundary but smashing it! How many wine lovers will be prepared to lay down seven blue buffaloes and a pink lion for it? (Yes, it’s R750 … for a single bottle of sauvignon blanc. That’s unheard of in South Africa — even if there are only 1,000 bottles in existence.)
There was a maxim that sauvignon blanc should be drunk before the end of the cricket season. So drinking a 2024 savvie in 2025 would be frowned upon. Yet here is sauvignon blanc imbongi/praise singer Thys Louw, the sixth-generation son and heir to farm these cool Durbanville vineyards, introducing a ninth savvie in the range and doing it with a 2023 vintage.
“Forward-thinking”, “innovative” and “milestone” leap from the label spiel — and entirely appropriate too. Louw is nuts about sauvignon blanc and seems to have an endless wellspring of creativity. Diemersdal has an everyday sauvignon blanc in its range (2025 is already bottled), along with a reserve sauvignon blanc, Eight Rows, Winter Ferment, Wild Horseshoe and The Journal — not to mention the sweet noble late harvest dessert wine and a subtly pink sauvignon rosé. All have a unique identity: it could be a touch of oak maturation, a wild yeast fermentation, maybe skin contact or the idiosyncratic example which is frozen immediately after harvest and the juice then fermented in the chilly depths of winter, but all have personality.
Louw first saw the 220l glass vessels in use at fabled sauvignon blanc producer Didier Dagueneau’s cellar in the Loire, France. (Dagueneau’s Silex is universally acknowledged as one of the world’s greatest sauvignons blanc.) They’ve been around for less than a decade but the 220l bulbs are gaining followers who praise the vessels as the most neutral, least interventionist method of winemaking. From Champagne to Burgundy, Sauternes and St Émilion, vignerons praise the fruit and terroir expression of the wine.
Louw and his winemaking team chief, Juandré Bruwer, love the purity of sauvignon expression from their maiden 2023 bottling. “Wood obviously imparts flavour, stainless steel with its artificial cooling during fermentation affects the wine, but this glass we leave in the winery and it naturally assumes the cellar’s ambient temperature — between 17°C and 19°C,” Bruwer says. The globular shape also affects the circulatory currents within, keeping lees (yeast cells) moving and in suspension during fermentation.
About the only negative aspect would be light strike, something which beer producers know all too well and the reason that beverage is sold in dark green or brown bottles. Not an insurmountable problem as the wine globes — bonbonnes as the French call them — can be wrapped in custom jackets or coveralls.
A bonus is that, providing it’s not dropped or hit by a forklift, a globe can be used indefinitely, unlike oak barrels that are recycled to become chichi charcuterie or cheeseboards, vegetable or flower planters.
Diemersdal’s The Globe 2023 was naturally fermented but subsequent vintages were inoculated with commercial yeast because Bruwer and Louw like to retain some control.
So what makes The Globe special? As expected, it’s not your everyday savvie. This is a more cerebral expression without being geeky or poncy. It’s bloody delicious yet is not overt and in-your-face lemon/granadilla/gooseberry or flint. It’s subtler, more elegant and genteel with a noticeable cassis or blackcurrant flavour. Fans of angular, spiky and acidic savvie needn’t worry about forking out a fortune because this wine won’t deliver that. It’s smooth, textured and long-lasting in the mouth, and sashays rather than fandangos or tap-dances on the tongue.
Sauvignon blanc plantings are still second to chenin blanc in the national vineyard (10,184ha vs 15,913), but with both domestic sales and bulk exports climbing, the future is looking rosy for this quintessential summer and sunshine wine.
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