Sadie Family Swartland Rotsbank 2024

Why is this Wine so Yummy?

Swartland. Having coveted the site for a decade and a half, Eben finally got his hands on these 40-year-old vines in 2021. “We have always maintained that we would only bottle a Swartland Chenin if it could be from this vineyard,” Eben tells us. “It might have been a long 14 years of waiting to get our hands on this vineyard, but it was simply worth it in every respect.”

It is located in the Paardeberg and planted on a very shallow rock shelf, “Rotsbank”. This leads to minimal vine growth as the topsoil is exceptionally shallow. The reserves are always scant, and the general shoot length and bunch sizes are much smaller than in the surrounding Chenin vineyards. These early releases are clearly special, yet Eben believes there is more to come, noting: “We have spent much time and capital over the past three seasons to elevate this vineyard to the highest level, and within a year or two, we expect an even greater response from the soils.”

Cropped at 32 hl/ha and bottled at just over 13%, the new release is a frighteningly good essay in tension. The wine’s substantial acidity and mouthcoating dry finish suggest it will only benefit from the time in the bottle. It is one of the most linear expressions of the year. “It is a blue steel Chenin,” quips Sadie.

About the Sadie Family

“…That these rare and beautiful bottlings continue to be sold at prices that would not encourage a Bordeaux Classed Growth proprietor out of his bed each morning is still quite unbelievable, especially when you’ve seen the passion and commitment up close.” Neal Martin

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“The wines shine through with a level of magnificence that is simply stunning [although the] wines are tough to find as most of these wines are on allocation.”

Anthony Mueller, The Wine Advocate

In the Vineyard

The Sadie Family team work with roughly 30 hectares of vines, one-third of which are estate, with the other vines farmed entirely under their control. This is quite the undertaking when you consider, at their furthest point, the vineyards lie some 250 miles apart and are spread across 53 separate parcels. Then consider that everything is dry grown and organically farmed and that each parcel, having different geologies, aspects and often grape varieties, will require different management. These vines, (from overwhelmingly old parcels), lie mostly on the high-altitude slopes of Swartland’s Atlantic-influenced mountains, one hour north of Cape Town on the Western Cape. The terroirs include Paardeberg Mountain (on granite), Riebeek Mountain (slate), Piquetberg (sandstone and quartz), Coastal Plain (chalk) and Malmesbury (Glenrosa clay). Further afield, several of the Old Vine Series plots fall outside of the Swartland WO, notably Soldaat in the Piekenierskloof highlands and the Skurfberg vineyards in Citrusdal Mountain.

While the terroirs differ significantly, Sadie notes, in general, that he’s farming with very old, low fertility, decomposed soils which are exceptionally demanding to work. With poor soils, an absence of irrigation and old vines, yields are naturally tiny—25 hl/ha at best—and three consecutive drought years have seen these figures drop far lower. There are no chemical additives to either the vines or the soils—a philosophy which extends to the cellar. Sadie’s key challenge in the vineyard, he notes, is preserving the grape’s acidity, freshness and purity—a challenge that starts in the vineyards with building the (previously neglected) soils’ life through inter-planting and organic composting. Whatever he’s doing, it’s working as the wines lack for nothing when it comes to energy and freshness.

Sadie’s Domaine has increased with new plantings on the West Coast (near the Skerpioen vineyard), and there’s a new project in the Cedarberg Mountains. Then, there are two extensions at Rotvas (Sadie’s home farm in Paardeberg) where the fruit is destined for Columella and Palladius. These vineyards bring Sadie’s holdings to nine hectares—still small, yet spaced over a huge distance of some 400 kilometres. Eben has bought in vineyard manager, Morné Steyn and viticulture consultant Jaco Engelbrecht to manage the increased workload. Despite this increase, Sadie notes that with these new sites, the aim is not necessarily to make more wine. Instead, it’s in planting a plethora of Mediterranean varieties more suited to Swartland’s ever-drier climate—including Vermentino, Picpoul, Marsanne, Grenache Blanc, Cinsault Blanc and Assyrtiko. He hopes these vineyards will help The Sadie Family adapt to the ongoing challenges of global warming and climatic shifts.

In the Winery

Sadie’s winemaking philosophy has evolved considerably over the years and his wines have become far purer, better balanced and now offer wonderful transparency of place. There is almost zero new oak in the cellar and these days extraction for the reds is limited to foot-stomping, the odd, irregular punch down and, what our own Dave Mackintosh calls, jugotage, whereby the team scoop the free juice over the top of the whole bunch ferments. All the wines are spontaneously fermented and there is no stainless steel, only concrete vats, a few eggs and mostly large format oak. Sadie uses no sulphur additions until the very end of the aging — and there are no other additions for that matter — with a final total that he finds is the minimum for aging and travelling. All the wines clarify naturally and are bottled without filtration.

If you knew the wines in the early days, be prepared for a shock, they are totally different today. In short, they are far, far finer than the early releases. As Eben puts it, “…until 2009 we made wine like you make coffee, since then we have made wine like you make tea.”

Like the rest of the wine world, shifting climate has impacted production.

“We used to pick over two months, but we now pick over 4 to 5 weeks. Everything got massively compressed, but the new cellar gives us a logistical advantage. The 2023 and 2024 vintages have been difficult because of that compression. We are struggling with an absence of proper spring. Our summers start late, and picking dates [for each of the vineyards around the Cape] are around the same time. So, there’s three weeks less hang time that affects early ripening more than late-ripening grapes because the acid breaks down much quicker and can end up with 0.75% more alcohol unless you have no acid left. Potassium take-up in grapes is much greater, so since 2015, we have started de-stemming a lot more [since the stems hold potassium that reduces acidity]. Our major consideration is to be able to plant new varieties, and so we are interplanting around 15% of the area with varieties that have higher acid retention, such as Colombard, Petit Manseng and Grillo.”

Eben Sadie

Where in the World is the Sadie Family?

The Sadie Family is based in Paardeberg in the Swartland District of the Coastal Region, in the Western Cape of South Africa. The work with vineyards across Swartland and the adjacent Citrusdal Mountain District of the Olifants River Region.