Author Archives: quietriotgirl

About quietriotgirl

what is so crazy about being different, she wondered, quietly.

Bottomless Coffee Band and a pizza – First Friday August 2022

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You may have heard (or seen) about our First Fridays Pizza and a Show events – we host a pizza night with a cool band on the first Friday of (almost) every month. Up next is Bottomless Coffee Band, on 5 August (yes we’re skipping July, Semma’s in Ireland, Helena’s in Joburg, it’s cold and hopefully wet…)

(Bottomless Coffee Band is ) “regarded as one of South Africa’s most unique and exciting live music experiences.“

According to their website: It’s hard to assign a genre to the music of the Bottomless Coffee Band. The style can be described as folk-pop. With foot stomping rhythms, hard hitting lyrics and hints of the dramatic, they are impressive to watch. “We like to refer to it as gourmet music…” 

For R350 per person you’ll get gourmet music and a gourmet pizza as well as a welcome drink (of our choice). We have a well stocked bar (and why not buy some wines at cellar door prices to take home… when in Rome Paardeberg…)

When: 5 August 2022 (doors 6pm; show 7pm)

Where: The Old House, Kalmoesfontein

To book / for more info: Helena on aabadenhorstwine@gmail.com.

Winter visits with (more) perks (than usual)…

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Our accommodation is pretty (and) popular, usually booked up far in advance, but we still have a few spots open for midweek winter getaways. So we’re sweetening the deal with a few special winter warmer options:

June = wine time

This June, book our two bedroom Stables or Winemaker’s Cottage midweek and get a mixed case of Secateurs Wines to enjoy in front of the fireplace. 

OR

Book our one bedroom Silo or Melkkamer for a midweek stay and we’ll throw in a bottle of our much loved Caperitif and four Swaan Cape Tonics. 

July = breakfast bonus

Book any of our accommodations for a midweek stay in July and we’ll throw in a farm breakfast, served at The Old House, every morning of your stay. 

August = soup & red wine

Come stay midweek this August and enjoy a hearty homemade soup and farm fresh bread (at a mealtime of your preference), paired with a bottle of our Family Red Blend (with the two bedroom Stables or Winemaker’s Cottage) or Secateurs Red Blend (with the one bedroom Silo or Melkkamer), on us.

*T&Cs

Midweek means check-in Mondays (14h) and check-out on Fridays (10h). Minimum two nights stay.

Deal valid on any new bookings made (for 01 June – 31 August 2022) from the date of this post.

Please book via Nightsbridge (find the link on our farm’s website kalmoesfontein.com)

Hope to see you on the farm soon!

The new singles club is here!

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In April we hosted a small trade tasting to release the new vintages of our Single Vineyard wines (2021) and Kalmoesfontein Family Blends (2020).

Now these are hitting local wine lists and stores – so we’d like to tell you a bit more about them.

In terms of the Single Vineyard wines; in 2021 we made:

The Golden Slopes; Klipkop and Kelder Steen / Chenin Blancs

Sout van die Aarde Palomino;

Raaigras Grenache;

Ramnasgras and Ringmuur Cinsault;

and also Sk’windjiesvlei Tinta Barocca.

Cause not all vineyards shine every year – and if they don’t impress on their own they get blended into the Kalmoesfontein White or Red…

Read more about these on our Facebook or Instagram pages. And check out this post for place to order them online!

Pizza & a show

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Here it is, our first First Fridays pizza night with a show:


Gerald Clark is back on home grounds, joined by some of the SA’s best musicians for a show that is heartfelt, soulful, stomping and loaded with years of experience playing his brand of Blues and Love Songs on stages all over the world.

R300pp gets you a pizza, a welcome drink by Huis van Chevallerie and this unique Gerald Clark show.

Cash bar, lots of fun. Only 100 tickets.

4 March 2022, pizza from 7pm, show starts at 8.

Book via Helena on aabadenhorstwine@gmail.com.

Tastings during harvest time…

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OK fine, we’ll do it…

Harvest time is hectic on the farm and obviously our top priority is to make wine from ripe grapes. But too many of you still want to come taste those wines, so we’ll compromise.

We (note NOT a winemaker or cellar crew member) will offer tastings twice a week during harvest.

11:30 on Wednesdays or Fridays

followed by our daily staff lunch.

At R350pp you get the tasting and whatever is on the menu that day (always meat/fish + side veg + salad + fresh farm bread + a glass of wine + coffee).

To book, contact Semma@aabadenhorst.com

Wedding season!

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We’re amidst a wedding season like never before… for 18 months we postponed and delayed all weddings but now we’re cramming the rest of the year full of celebrations of love!

One of the first weddings we got to host in between COVID waves was that of Darryn & Elize in the early winter. Their lovely #holypandemony recently got featured on The Pink Book in an article full of lovely praise for our venue and staff.

We love (love!) hosting events like weddings and we still have a few (very few) weekends open in 2022, so if you ever wanted to say I DO on a wine farm, why not consider ours…

To see more about our farm as a venue, click on the venue tab above, or here–>

Here are a few pics from that featured wedding:

to book or find out more about available dates, contact Semma@aabadenhorst.com

Grenache Day 2021

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Hey hey it’s Grenache Day… and since Kalmoesfontein is home to the oldest known Grenache vineyard in the land, planted in 1952(!) we usually celebrate 17 September pretending it is Raaigras’ birthday. This year the twelve long rows of Grenache Noir turns 69!

So we went looking for other cool things that happened in 1952… Like television’s first magazine-format program, the Today Show, made its debute on NBC with Dave Garroway hosting.

The Original Moulin Rouge movie hit the big screens, Patrick Swayze (may his soul dance in peace) and Jeff Goldblum (“Nice To Meet You, Mr. Dude”) were born and Capt. Vincent H. McGovern and 1st Lt. Harold W. Moore made the first transatlantic helicopter flight (July 15–31).

All good reasons to raise a glass and say a big CHEERS.

Laduuuuuma…

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“Laduma” (literally, “it thunders” in the Zulu language) is the unique exclamation used by South Africans to celebrate a goal scored in soccer. (source)

Today I’m using it to announce our Tim Atkin scores…

Adi doesn’t make wine for awards or scores and we never enter any competitions (actually I lie, Adi and Hanneke made a sweet wine specifically for a competition this year because the prize is The Jan Smuts Award, but that’s a whole other story, which in itself explains our approach to awards).

You will find no stars or medals stuck on our bottles and no braggy social media posts announcing scores… But, from the marketing and sales side we’re sneaking in this post because we often get asked for scores and we think our 2021 SA report card from Tim Atkin is worth a blogpost.

From 90 points for Secateurs Rosé 2021 (which has a cellar door price of R80 and got a special mention as Best Value Rosé) to THREE wines (Kelder- & Klip Kop Steen and Ringmuur Cinsault), scoring 96 points, we feel like proud parents who want to brag with their kids’ achievements, even if they roll their eyes.

So below you can see how we scored.

Casual. Have a nice weekend, drink good wine.