There is a great misconception when looking at the wine world from the outside in. Surely, surely, winemaking must be the most romantic job in the world?! There’s wine! And food! And beautiful views! Being a winemaker must mean gentle strolls through vineyards, trailing perfectly plump grapes with one hand while inspecting a glass of your latest vintage against the sunset backdrop with the other. Spend ten minutes talking with Eben Sadie, one of South Africa’s most celebrated winemakers, and he’ll take those rose coloured glasses off your face and throw them over his shoulder. They might get pulverised under the tires of a passing tractor.
Being a winemaker puts you at the coal face of climate change. Vintages have become intensely compressed — Sadie’s 64 vineyards, once harvested over 2 months, are now picked in 35 days. Located in the water-scarce Swartland, Sadie Family Wines are being pushed out of the extreme and into the realms of supernatural viticulture.
The 2024 vintage was a tough one. “For me, this vintage always had a bit of Doomsday to it,” says Eben. The rain simply stopped the previous September, leaving the vineyards parched for seven months until its return in May, well after harvest. Drastic measures were called for, causing Sadie to drop half of their fruit — that means half of their wine — to lighten the load on their vineyards. And yet… “These wines are way better in the glass than they should be,” admits Eben. “They show incredibly well.” The wines of 2024 are more elegant, open and lifted than their previous counterparts. Expect greater character, a massive volume of primary fruit and linear textures.
Several wines have come from left field and surprised Sadie. The potential wine of the vintage, Palladius is laser-like in its focus, having included a significant amount of West Coast fruit this vintage. “We’ve never produced a Palladius like this,” says Eben. “It's a completely new definition. We’re super stoked.” The Kokerboom was picked earlier than usual with interesting results: fresher, less loud, more refined, with a ginergy, spicy aspect. “It’s not how we know the vineyard, but we made a good call.” The Pofadder is what Eben describes as “the guy by himself at the end of the bar”, yet this year, completely out of character, it’s booming out of the glass. “It’s singing from the get-go — no idea why,” Eben shrugs.
No doubt adding to the intensity of the harvest, this year’s release also celebrates the addition of two new wines to the Sadie range: Twiswind and Sonvang. These field blends are Sadie’s answer to climate change, rebelling against the New World’s domination of essentially six grape varieties. Named after the wind that cuts through the vineyard, Twiswind is a blend of twelve lesser-known grapes, including Piquepoul, Grillo and Marsanne. Structured, pithy and zesty, Eben describes this as a “mega power wine”. Also boasting a dozen grape blend, Sonvang embraces cultivars like Alicante Bouchet, Agiorgitiko, Pontac, Bastardo do Castello, Tinta Amarella and Lleudoner Pelut, resulting in an Italian-like style with deep, gripping tannins and a peppering of oriental spice — “When your wine smells like the Bokaap, you know it’s linked to the Cape’s terroir.”
Then, of course, there are the other terroir-focused wines, highlighting South Africa’s incredible potential. Soldaat is the exhibition of elegance with pomegranate precision and rose petal perfume. Treinspoor shows off with Tinta Barocca, the oldest standing quality grape of the Swartland — “I’m in love with this grape for what it does” — while Skerpioen is a West Coast standout from a minerality perspective. Voetpad boasts some 140-year-old vines, and is the most tannic wine out of all the whites, while Columella is so refined that “it will become sterile if we refine it anymore.”
Showing a “formidable result”, Mev. Kirsten ushers in the top spot of wine of the vintage, a complex cocktail of weight, power and swiftness from South Africa’s oldest Chenin vineyard located in Stellenbosch’s suburbia. Heading further north, Sadie’s two other single Chenin Blancs are equally fascinating. The Swartland Rotsbank is “a very strict wine… It’s like ice skating” with gunflint and seaweed aromas. Skurfberg in Citrusdal Mountain might be one of the smallest regions, but it’s arguably the most celebrated. “There’s not much to make here,” says Eben, always adamant not to let winemaking get in the way of good grapes. “Just don’t drop the juice down the drain.”
“You save a lot of time realising the key to great wine is great grapes,” reflects Eben. “The second you cut the bunch is the best the wine is ever going to be. Between then and the cork, the best wine happens with whoever makes the least amount of mistakes in the cellar.” This certainly is a reflection of a vintage of excellent decisions and very few mistakes.
