This beautiful video, by online retailer Port2Port is pure magic. It captures Adi and our extended family’s philosophy (if that’s not too ‘wanky’ to say, Adi) and mission very nicely.
Read the accompanying article, here. And buy our wines from their store here. Enjoy!
The farm will be closed from 18 December 2020 – 5 January 2021 as we all escape the heat and get some rest ahead of the harvest. No tastings or lunches, parties or events.
But before then, Cape Town take note, we are looking out for you this Kaapse Somer.
Buy a box of 6 Caperitif (for R930) and get 24x200ml Swaan for free.
Delivery to Cape Town and surrounds included.
Order via denise@wineadmin.co.za.
Our next monthly tasting lunch will take place on 24 August – your chance to see the lush winter landscape of the Swartland and explore all that Kalmoesfontein offers.
The day includes a tour of the cellar, a wine tasting, an introduction to our Agave Spirit, Caperitif and Swaan Cape Tonic as well as a 3 course farm lunch.
We start at 11:30 and it costs R500pp.
This takes place the day before Ayama (just on the south side of the Paardeberg) hosts their annual Artichoke Festival,
and on Friday night we’re playing some vinyls while making some of the famous Kalmoesfontein pizzas in our wood fire oven (2pizzas + a bottle of superlative vintage Secateurs for R300 limited to 30pax)… so why not make a weekend of it and come see what the platteland has to offer.
Unfortunately our accommodation is already fully booked, but to book for Friday or Saturday’s offerings contact Semma@aabadenhorst.com.
Last night we celebrated Valentines Day with a beautiful outdoor movie screening.
With pink Caperitif welcome drinks, pizza, wine, popcorn and the famous Badenhorst Family Ice Cream paired with a feel good local love story under the stars – it was truly a night to remember.
We plan on doing a few of these throughout the year so be sure not to miss the next one. Send me a mail on aabadenhorstwine@gmail.com to be on our events mailing list.
And then it was February- goodness. We’ve been very busy on the farm; first prepping the cellar and new cold room for harvest, then waiting for grapes and after a rather hectic heatwave everything seemed to come at the same time. The Chenin Blanc anyway.
With Jasper now heading up his own cellar down the dust road Hanneke Botha has stepped up to head the team in the day to day of the cellar. Luckily for her and us Keiji has joined us from Japan for the third year and we have a few more pairs of hard working hands joining the regular crew this season.
In the next few weeks I will try to catch them all for a short interview (somehow between 4:30am starts, staggered lunch times and closing shop at 19:30 they have very little time for social media mangers…)
Here’s a few pics, keep an eye on our Instagram account @aabadenhorst for day to day blow by blow action.
All the grapes are in and things are starting to slow down (a little bit) in the cellar.
Harvest 2018 was late, tough, fast and small. But the fruit looks good and the juice is tasty.
Some interesting notes and figures I spotted in the “grape intake book” include:
15 tons of Muscat de Frontignan (for Caperitif)
on 23 Feb an interesting combination of red grapes came in with a note “Port 2018″…
3,4tons of Raaigras Grenache (pictured above) and
431 kissies of Ramnasgras Cinsault…
In die somer uitgawe van Landbou Weekblad se Boerkos verskyn ‘n mooi artikel deur Arina du Plessis, kos-redakteur, wat hulde bring aan ons boere.
Die artikel draai rondom ‘n erfenis braai wat ons in vroeg September op Kalmoesfontein gehou het. Arina en haar span het ‘n hele klomp diverse boere van die Swartland tot in die Klein Karoo en die Koue Bokkeveld genooi en op die dag met almal se bestandele ‘n feesmaal voorgesit.
Hier is die spyskaart, en die resep vir een van ons gunstelinge op die dag:
Kry die uitgawe, nou beskikbaar, vir al die resepte, ‘n insigewende kyk na hoe verskillende fraksies van die boere gemeentskap dinge doen en veral hoe die droogte waarin die Wes-Kaap hom tans bevind, almal aantas. Lucille Botha het met almal van peer tot skaap en selfs wyn boere gesels.
On Saturday we had our first “formal” sit down trade tasting on Kalmoesfontein.
When Adi proposed the event about 6 weeks ago he was adamant that we’d be going very formal – guests (all from the Western Cape trade, and that one journalist we always like to have around) would sit down to taste the latest vintages of our regular offering and new single vineyard releases as well some of those cards Adi always has up his sleeve (when he wears them).
Afterwards we would enjoy a casual Swartland lunch. I was going to send out postcards with Save the Dates – an idea that got me very excited, I even started writing the 70 cards only to realise that logistically there was no way we would establish a guest list, get postal addresses and trust the South African Postal Service to get the Save The Dates to people before it was actually too late for them to save the date… Alas, sales reps, family and wine agents started pulling together an invite list and eventually we go a lovely group of about 30 people together to share a relaxed day on the farm with us.
By the time the final reminder email went out Adi’s comms to me was that the day would be “very casual”… and I think what we achieved this weekend was the perfect Kalmoesfontein middleground.
Upon arrival we served an unlabelled and very unassuming “bubbly I’m making with my French friend Vincent Careme” and arguably the braaibroodjies of the year. Adi’s mother Judy was prepping lunch in the kitchen and the vinyl player filled the air with some folk reggae vibes.
Eventually everyone moved to the back stoep to sit down at a tasting sheet with a line up of 8 wines. Adi introduced each wine briefly talking terroir and cellar methods in his own unique way.
After the tasting a buffet harvest table style lunch of
braaied peri-peri // lemon and herb chickens (free range from a neighbour obviously)
more of those braaibroodjies (plaas brood with tomato, cheese and onion)
green salad (from the farm’s garden) and Judy’s famous Salsa Verde
hereboontjies salad
was served in the kitchen.
There was desert too. And some sample tasters of Adi’s latest ventures; ‘Century Spirit’ – 100% Graaff Reinet Agave and ‘Spirit of the Cape’ – distilled Caperitif.
By the time I left Adi and a few reps, agents and ‘last guests standing’ were sitting around with all the open bottles of wine… and I can only imagine that scene persisted late into the afternoon.
If you joined us, thank you for making the journey to the Partyberg. We hope you had a lovely day. If you couldn’t make it, let’s hope we can get our postcards out way early next time – send a pigeon with your postal address, please.
Credit:
Tasting sheet designed by Ronelle at YehBaby.
Pictures 3 and 5 by Johan from getwine.
Other pictures by ‘Marketing and Web Stuff Cousin’ Helena.
Never a dull moment on the Partyberg. It is Friday and there are lots of things happening on Kalmoesfontein.
The flowers are in bloom,
new wines are going into bottle,
and we’re prepping for a trade tasting (and lunch) tomorrow.
Meanwhile Greg Sherwood (MW!) posted nice things about the 2015 Raaigras Grenache, and I quote:
“This must be one of South Africa’s best Grenache reds. Coming from old vines planted on Adi Badenhorst’s farm on the decomposed granite hills of the Paardeberg, Swartland in 1951, this wine shows such Grenache purity, power and authenticity.”
and our Chenin is included in a tasting line up, in Stellenbosch (of all places).
Happy Friday indeed! Cheers.
If you’ve ever had a bottle of our wine (or Caperitif or Swaan Tonic) in your hands and took some time to examine the label you would have noticed a lot of detail. But did you know each detail has a story, a connection to our journey and our family?
No? Well let me enlighten you. In this post we’ll look at the horseshoe and the three headed bird (sometimes a goose, sometimes a swan, never a sparrow).
The three headed bird:
Yes, three heads are “trippier” than one, as Adi likes to point out, but in actual fact the meaning here refers to three generations of Badenhorst farmers.
Adi and cousin Hein’s grandfather was the farm manager of Groot Constantia for 46 years, their fathers were born there and farmed together in Constantia, making Adi and Hein the third generation. Adi obviously farms and makes wine in the Swartland while Hein has an olive farm in Prince Albert, amongst others.
The horseshoe:
The horseshoe is probably one of the most well-known good luck symbols of the Western world and has a long history as a protective symbol.
The symbol is quite common in Egyptian iconography. It is a very auspicious symbol, a charm used to protect against any form of evil and bring good luck. Read more here.
On Kalmoesfontein you’ll find a few horses and plenty of horseshoes above cellar and other doors.
Keep an eye out for these symbols on our products and on this blog for more fascinating facts…
Badenhorst Family Wines 