The Swartland
September 25
Spent all day yesterday flying. Our plane was delayed, instead of getting into Cape Town at 9:30 pm we got in at 10:45 pm. By the time we got to the house and settled in it was 1:00 am. Fortuitously, Troy brought two wines and Randy brought cheese. Time for some wine and cheese to celebrate making it to Cape Town. Then off to bed.
September 26
Alarm went off at 7:00 am. No one wanted to get up, but our first wine tasting was at 10:00 am. We thought we would stop for some breakfast, but didn’t see the two places recommended to us. We went looking for other places, but never found anything and eventually ended on some very rural roads. Luckily Charlotte had a small stash of granola bars, one per couple. First stop was to see Eben Sadie of Sadie Family wines. Eben had informed us before the appointment that he only had an hour. We proceeded to spend the 70 minutes learning about the different soil types and the history of the area, before heading in to taste his wines. When we queried him about his deadline, he stated it was pushed back. We started tasting. We tasted 4 wines, 2 whites and 2 reds. Eben produces two styles of wine, a single vineyard, old world style and then Rhone blend in new world style. We had a wonderful Palomino and Chenin Blanc called Skerpioen and an outstanding 100% Cinsault called Pofadder. The white blend, one of the flagships, was called Palladius and the red was called Columella.
Then it was off for some lunch at Bar Bar Black Sheep. We got lost for a second time and ended up running very late so we split up, Randy and Charlotte went and enjoyed some calamari and we went to our second appointment, Mulliineux. Eben knew the owner but she was stateside working on a small project in Amador county. We met with Nicola who was very knowledgable about the Swartland wine region. We learned that the principles of Swartland Independent producers includes 100% farmed and produced in Swartland, naturally produced including no yeast, no application that changes the constitution of the wine, no wine may be aged with more than 25% new oak and 90% of the wine must contain only certain, allowable varieties.
Finally we met Adi Badenhorst of A.A. Badenhorst. How can you not simply love a guy who is hatching chicks and parrots in the office, has owls hanging out in the attic of the office, has a turntable in the winery listening to the Stones, tinkers with brewing IPA and is about to formally bottle a pale ale, messes around with making a sparkling wine they affectionately call trailer park pop, and the most expensive piece of equipment in the winery is the espresso maker, and is also the only equipment that must achieve 100% uptime. Adi makes wine the way he wants to and as Troy would recap, he basically, “could give a F@&$ about anything other than what he feels like doing.” Troy’s kind of guy.
After all these visits we ended up being given more wine than we purchased. On the way back to Cape Town we were so hungry we managed to kill a pigeon and some sort of varmint similar to a really big guinea pig. Tasty vittles. Oh well, on to Woolworth’s Food for some lamb, gnocchi, meats and cheeses.