Pangaea: Putting the world in a bottle

When the very first vintage blend was finalised for Pangaea – a wine not of any singular terroir, region, or varietal expression but one that is a true global red blend – its founders paused and reflected on the magnitude of what they had created.

Scroll down to see notes and scores for all five vintages of Pangaea

The inception

Before them, spread out amid the blending table were portions of Cabernet Sauvignon from Napa, Merlot from Bordeaux, Petit Verdot from Spain, Cabernet Franc from South Africa, and Malbec from Argentina. Blended altogether, they amounted to a wine much greater than the sum of its parts – a wine that encapsulated a terroir-expression of Earth.

Who in their right mind could imagine such an idea? Blending wine from four different continents and five separate countries? The logistics alone are enough to deter 99.9% of the dreamers and darers. Save for two people – Travis Braithwaite and the maestro of master blenders, Michel Rolland.

‘My job, all my life, has been to create blends between different parcels and varieties, certainly not different countries’, Rolland told me, ‘but it was an idea that I had a long time ago’.

Rolland darts from one blending session in Argentina to one in Bordeaux on the same day, or from Bordeaux straight to Napa Valley. At times, he couldn’t help but imagine if he could take a sample of wine from France and blend it with a component from Napa.

Would it make for a more complete wine?

The conception

When, therefore, Braithwaite rang his office to suggest his own take on the idea, Rolland told him flatly: ‘Blending is no problem; I will do it, but please handle the logistics. The logistics are terrible.’

Braithwaite’s connection to wine is entirely due to his upbringing. Born in Toronto to South African parents who decided to raise him in Stellenbosch, ‘All our friends were winemakers or farm owners,’ says Braithwaite.

After their initial discussions, Braithwaite and Rolland first met in Argentina at Clos de Los Siete, and talked through the idea in more detail.

‘I told Travis that if the wine is average or not good enough, then, we will stop there. A blend needs to be better than all the components,’ Rolland said.

Braithwaite painstakingly gathered samples from around the world, and he and Rolland met again, this time in South Africa. ‘I remember sitting there being so nervous. Theoretically, it should work,’ he recalls.

They spent the day creating different blends and then, as Braithwaite tells it: ‘Finally, we arrived at quite a nice wine.’

Rolland agreed, saying: ‘It’s not just a good wine. It’s an original wine with high marks of quality.’

Braithwaite says he remembers Michel’s exact words: ‘I never thought in my lifetime I would see all these countries in one bottle.’

The world in a bottle

Given the grape sources, ‘everything fluctuates and changes,’ explains Braithwaite, ‘and obviously, we try to represent the strongest wine we can. We harvest all year round, so we have different climactic conditions in five countries to deal with. The strongest varieties will often shine through the wine. So the blend best represents what we get in every vintage.’

It’s hard for consumers to wrap their heads around a global blend at tastings. ‘You’ve never tasted something like it. So what category do you put it into?’ Braithwaite wonders aloud.

First, each wine is made in its own country – harvested, fermented, and barrel-aged. Ageing is anywhere from 12 to 26 months, with wines from the northern hemisphere typically aged longer than those from the southern hemisphere.

When a wine is ready for blending, it is racked into stainless steel barrels and then transported under temperature control by boat or air to a winery in Napa Valley.

Before a wine ever leaves its country of origin, Rolland receives around three samples per variety, per vintage to narrow down the blending components and streamline shipping requirements.

Once gathered in Napa, the final blends are put together by Rolland, Braithwaite, and consultant winemaker Jean Hoefliger (formerly Newton and Alpha Omega, presently AXR, The Debate, Denali, et al.).

Seven vintages and counting

So far they have produced seven vintages – 2015-2023, but did not make wine in 2020 due to the fires in Napa Valley.

The first vintage produced, the 2015 Pangaea, was bottled in September 2017 and released in 2022. Braithwaite says: ‘We have an extended bottle ageing period because, as you can imagine, each variety is so competitive that it takes a while for everything to integrate.’

In 2015, 3,283 bottles were produced, 3,360 in 2016, and 5,000 in 2017 – though smaller volumes were actually released commercially. With the 2018 bottling, some 12,000 bottles were made – half of the blend was Malbec from Argentina. In 2019, production was 9,000 bottles. Braithwaite says production will hover between 8,000 and 12,000 annually.

The wine is only available in packs of three, priced at $1,500 per pack. Single bottles are available for restaurants. Braithwaite says there is a strong direct-to-consumer presence in Germany, Switzerland, Spain, South Africa, Singapore, and now the US, with a growing 10-15% going to wholesale in the on- and off-trades.

When pressed about the challenges, like issues with climate change and mitigating factors for so many harvests, and why go through it all for a wine, Rolland says that after many decades of blending, he needed a good challenge. ‘And Travis is a young guy who tastes wine quite well and has the energy to do this. He wanted to do something totally original.’

The first five vintages of Rolland’s world blend Pangaea

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