Red Blend

The warm earthy notes of the wine will suite a tomato-based casserole beautifully, or a rich cheese fondue!

Small parcels of selected fruit is sourced from 7 vineyards on our farm Kalmoesfontein and from neighbours with good tasting grapes. The 2018 vintage was beyond expectations in terms of quality and fruit expression. The yields were low, averaging around 5.3 tons/ha and 6000L was bottled from this harvest.

The wine is pressed into old 4000L vats and 8% new 600L casks for a maturation period of 16 months. During this time the wine is topped regularly but not racked until just before bottling.

We hand harvest all the grapes on the same day from these vineyards. The grapes are sorted meticulously in the vineyard and transported in small picking boxes to a refrigerated room where they are left overnight to cool down. The following day the grapes are transferred to fermentation vessels made of concrete or wood. Around 40% of the grapes are destemmed and minimal sulphur is added at this stage. The whole bunches are “foot stomped” to extract juice to assist the onset of natural fermentation. Once fermentation has started the tanks are pigeaged twice daily. The grapes fermented in closed concrete tanks are left on their skins for 3 to 6 months before pressing.

AA Badenhorst Family Wines are grown, made and matured on Kalmoesfontein farm in the Swartland appellation of South Africa. 28ha of old bushvines grow in the Siebritskloof part of the Paardeberg mountain. The property is owned by the baie dynamic and good looking cousins Hein and Adi Badenhorst. They are originally from Constantia. Their grandfather was the farm manager of Groot Constantia for 46 years. Their fathers were born there and farmed together in Constantia, during the days when people still ate fresh vegetables and Hanepoot grapes, drank Cinsault and there were a lot less traffic lights and hippies still had a presence. Together these two have restored a neglected cellar on the farm that was last used in the 1930′s to make natural wines in the traditional manner.