2021 Palladius

No trip to the Cape would be complete without visiting Eben Sadie in Swartland. Before we tasted his 2022s, Sadie gave me a tour of his impressive new winery under construction. One thing that he or his sons, who are taking an increasing active role in the running, will be short of in the future is space. “The 2022 was a difficult vintage on paper,” Sadie explains. “All the rain fell to the south of Swartland, and so we had a hangover of drought. We didn’t have a good winter. Just after flowering, after fruit set, we reduced our crop by half, taking it down one bunch per shoot, and we thinned the shoots right down to maintain a conservative canopy management. It’s one of the benefits of having a fixed team of 26 people. Also, we have had the lowest alcohol levels ever, bringing in the fruit below 13.5% potential alcohol. I’m fascinated by the 2022s because they are way better than I thought they would be. It’s a radical and expensive vintage for us because we bottled very little. It’s been a revelation. It will be interesting to see if we can have the same levels of alcohol in a wetter year. We’ll do some trials to see if it is possible.” This is a brilliant range of 2022s under his Old Vine Series umbrella that includes one new cuvée, a pure Chenin Blanc from Swartland named Rotsbank that Sadie told me he had waited 14 years to make. The 2022 Skurfberg might well constitute the vinous highlight of my trip, consistently ranking amongst his best wines. Maybe just the Kokerboom left me wanting more. The 2021 Columella, his blend of Rhône varieties now around two decades old is wonderful, less powerful than older vintages yet imbued with greater finesse and articulating its site with greater clarity.

Eben Sadie is a man of two passions…wine and the wave. I’ve no doubt his family is also high up on his list, but in my personal experience, these are what he dreams about. Hopefully, Sadie is still with us. He was about to celebrate a significant milestone by flying to Fiji to surf a famous, but no doubt dangerous, break. Couldn’t he just gather a few mates for a bit of karaoke? Far safer. Meeting him at his Swartland farm, I made sure that I had time to visit his small vat-room and tour his new acquisition of the neighbouring Rotsvas farm.

“We essentially started as a very tiny property,” Sadie explains, his dog running perilously close to his bakkie (pick-up truck) as we inspect the vines. “Of the original 17 hectares, only 8.5 was great soil, and so we planted three parcels: Slangdraai [snake bend], Twiswind [to argue with the wind] and Sonvang [sun-catch]. Still, as it stands, we never owned our old vines - we have about 25 hectares under lease contracts and those are predominantly very old parcels. There was one old vine parcel of Chenin Blanc that was literally 15 meters away from where our last vineyard stopped. I always walked there with my dogs and tasted the fruit over the last 15 years. I tried several times to buy it, but there was never an option [on the table]. So, in 2021, an opportunity presented itself whereby AA Badenhorst Wines and ourselves could buy the land that separated our properties. We managed to buy a small piece and Badenhorst the remainder [200 hectares]. So, we are true neighbours now. It just so transpired that after 14 years another neighbour that also owned this specific old vine parcel of Chenin agreed to a sale. Thus, we bought two pieces from two neighbours, and now the property stands at 37.5 hectares. In addition, we managed to acquire an exceptional two-hectare parcel named Rotsbank [rock shelf] and an additional five hectares of old vine Chenin Blanc called Antenna. Part of this parcel will ultimately make its way to Palladius once we have improved the viticulture and soil health. About 13 hectares of land have been cleared, and we are currently planting cereals and legumes. It has incredible soil, but we are in no hurry. For now, there are enough new additions that we first need to understand and farm well. It presents a massive opportunity, a responsibility we are happy to undertake. The timing is perfect since we have a solid, permanent team in the vineyards. We have a junior team in the group that is being trained and educated now, so they can grow with all the new responsibilities.”

I ask Sadie about recent developments apropos vinification since I last visited. “From 2015, we started trialing whole cluster and de-stemmed bunches to analyse the amount of acid that you lose in adding stems, especially in dry vintages. Since 2021, I don’t do any punch-downs - just wet the cap and spread the yeast. The alcoholic ferments are longer, about a month in concrete vats with no cooling as they peak at 24° to 25° Celsius. The Columella now spends six weeks on the skins.”

I tasted through Sadie’s complete range of 2021s plus a couple of 2020s a week later with Rosa Kruger, who has been instrumental in linking him with some of the Cape’s finest vineyards to create his much sought-after Old Vine Series. It’s probably playing the same old record in praising his entire range that possess so much nuance and character, cerebral yet delicious wines that you want to study as much as imbibe. Sadie has always been candid and critical where appropriate, occasionally scathing when it comes to his first vintages where his techniques were almost the antithesis of nowadays. I will let the tasting notes of his latest releases speak for themselves.

Finally, he mentioned his surfing adventure before signing off in his last message. “Fiji is a significant undertaking,” he wrote, “but I am excited. The rest is up to nature.” Just like wine, eh?