Latest news with #AdiBadenhorst
Times
09-05-2025
- General
- Times
South Africa's most exciting wines, vineyards and vintners
They called it a revolution. No walls were breached or regimes toppled, and the liquid spilt wasn't blood, it was red wine. But what red wine… In the Noughties a bunch of young winemakers became enthused by the amazingly varied soils and altitudes of the Swartland, a large, hot swathe of South Africa's hinterland 45 minutes north of Cape Town. They found hitherto neglected vineyards (and planted others), fermented the grapes with naturally occurring yeasts and intervened as little as possible. The wines were so gorgeous that many people, like me, who had loved South African whites but few reds, were obliged to change their minds. And changing hearts and minds is, surely, the point of a revolution. South Africa has been producing wine since the 1650s, but initially only in Constantia and Stellenbosch. By the time political isolation ended with apartheid, in the early 1990s, the co-operatives that had made more than 90 per cent of the country's wine, and focused primarily on quantity, were losing their power and quality-focused private wineries were appearing. In 1999 the Swartland Revolution began when Eben Sadie set up Sadie Family Wines amid a sea of wheat. Soon he had company: young adventurers who, like him, had learnt from older makers and were ready to try doing things differently. Adi Badenhorst, white-bearded but boyish, has the energy and charm you need to create a bohemian oasis (complete with pizza oven on the shady veranda) in a place that looked, when he arrived, 'like the Gobi Desert'. His glorious wines include single-vineyard cinsaults and Raaigras, from the country's oldest grenache plot, which has a lovely violet note and a freshness that comes, he says, from the granite soils: 'Grenache is one of those grapes that listens to where it's planted.' • This article contains affiliate links that can earn us revenue The David & Nadia vineyard nearby is a very different operation: David Sadie (no relation) produces about 55,000 bottles in a winery the size of a pea. He has, as yet, no vineyards of his own. But judging from his citrus-pure, moreish chenin blancs and headily perfumed grenache-syrah blend, Elpidios, the work he puts into buying top-quality grapes is paying off. Today there are about 30 wineries in the Swartland. Prices aren't the issue here, thanks to the weak rand — a top wine can cost about £60, with some under £30. But quantities are tiny. Most vines are untrellised, which allows the leaves to shade the fruit from the brutal sun, and these tousled bush vines are an important part of the region's wild beauty. Yet its wines can be as sophisticated as the outstanding chenin and syrah trios by Chris and Andrea Mullineux, which showcase the different Swartland soils: iron, schist and (my favourite) granite, the red an elegant blend of black tea and red fruit. Before heading further inland to Tulbagh, I dropped in on Callie Louw (although 'dropping in' hardly describes bumping miles up a dusty track). Louw's vines are bushier, the soil beneath them drier and the man who somehow farms them organically even more stubborn than his fellow revolutionaries. Porseleinberg is part of the Boekenhoutskloof group, and much of what Louw grows is for The Chocolate Block, a hugely popular Swartland blend. Porseleinberg itself is a superb single-vineyard syrah, its tobacco-leaf and blackberry notes a vindication of everything Louw believes about how to grow grapes on a wind-battered hillside. • Swap Stellenbosch for this underrated South African wine region At first sight, the perfect lawns and large-format artworks of the estate where Rudiger Gretschel makes Krone premium sparkling seem as different from Porseleinberg as tiny-production syrah is from South Africa's premium fizz. But Gretschel is just as serious about his amphora-aged and supremely elegant single-site blanc de blancs as Louw is about syrah. As for a wild element: Gretschel drives me north, up into the Citrusdal mountains, to his property, Swartberg Wingerde, which is so remote he has to deliver weekly groceries to his workers. He shows me bush vines planted in deep sand, which seems an unlikely home for them. But his Holism Grenache, with its notes of plum, spice and white pepper, is exceptional. It is, I realise, as I look out across these wild slopes towards the Atlantic, something more: revolutionary. Abercrombie & Kent can organise tailor-made trips to South Africa's wine country, including Swartland, By Jane MacQuitty Dazzling prestige blanc de blancs chardonnay champagne with taut, intense citrus-blossom and almond elegance.£148, Glorious greeny-gold, steely, stony chablis with a long lemony finish. A real charmer from northern Burgundy.£29.95, Magnificent magnum from a tip-top walled vineyard, with lots of tangy umami and mineral oomph.£255, Thrilling white burgundy from century-old vines, with soft, honeyed, floral, yellow-apple elegance.£85, Bright and beautiful Aussie chardonnay bursting with mouthwateringly herbaceous, zingy, flinty fruit.£63.95,
The Guardian
30-03-2025
- Business
- The Guardian
Wines you'll really want to Swig
Domaine Gamiller Priune, Côtes du Rhône, France 2023 (£18.95, What do you look for in a wine merchant? Inclusiveness would be high on my list, by which I mean no snobby condescension or arch comments if you betray that you don't know your chardonnay from your chablis (or, indeed, that you don't know that chablis is always made from chardonnay in the eponymous part of northern Burgundy). Enthusiasm, a feeling that your merchant really loves what they sell and wants nothing more than to share it and find the right bottle for you, is another welcome quality, as too is a sense that prices are fair – if not 'never knowingly undersold' at least not 'always furtively oversold'. Most important though, is the wine itself – that sense that, whatever you buy, you're in safe hands and likely to end up with something delicious. One retailer that answers all those prerequisites for me is the London-based online specialist, which has a range that never seems to miss, filled with fantastic wines such as Priune, an exquisitely pure, deep, plum-and-cherry fruited, supple Rhône red. Danbury Ridge Pinot Noir, Essex, UK 2022 (£43, Swig sources its wines from all over the winemaking world, and in all imaginable styles, but, as with all the best merchants, there's a recognisable house signature across its portfolio: these are wines that are balanced with a sense of clarity and verve. One of their traditional strengths is South Africa, and the company has been responsible for raising the profile of many of the stars of the new wave of funky, adventurous winemaking that has emerged in the Cape over the past couple of decades: names such as Adi Badenhorst, maker, among other things, of the consistently superb AA Badenhorst Secateurs White, Swartland 2024 (£17.50), a fabulously complex, rich, weighty mouthful of apply chenin blanc loveliness, and Pieter Walser of Blankbottle, the man behind such distinctively delightful, wackily named wines as Orbitofrontal Cortex 2023 (£32.50), a by-turns tangy and creamy, multilayered dry white blend. Latterly, the Swig team have been looking closer to home, turning up such delights as Danbury Ridge's insouciantly suave immaculately ripe berry-fruited Essex pinot noir red. Alberto Orte Atlantida Blanco, Jerez, Spain 2022 (£39, Pinot is the variety used to make another red highlight of the Swig range, which I was happy to taste at a recent event where the retailer showed off its wares alongside 11 other similarly independent-minded wine importers: Weingut am Schlipf Schneider Spätburgunder vom Kalkstein, Baden, Germany 2022 (£32) is serious pinot noir in a lacy, intricate, lipsmacking style with, as a Stranglers-loving someone in the Swig team puts it unimprovably on the retailer's website, a 'texture like sun'. That phrase would also fit rather nicely with one of Swig's finds in Valdeorras in Galicia, northwestern Spain: Alberto Orte A Portela 2019 (£27.50) is a red wine from the local mencía that combines the slightly crunchy feel you get in Loire cabernet franc with the graceful fluency of pinot noir. It's the work of the super-talented winemaker Alberto Orte, who also supplies Swig with the outrageously lovely Atlantida Blanco, an effortlessly evocative unfortified dry white from sherry country in Jerez that feels like an Atlantic breeze-cooled stroll through apple orchards and citrus groves.
