Ons onderSTEEN #drinkchenin dag

Here in the Swartland most days are Chenin Blanc days, we make a lot of it, we drink a lot of it…

But June 18th is officially known as Drink Chenin Day, officially in the sense that “In 2014 the first #DrinkChenin Day was celebrated on June 12th in New York and 10 other cities across the USA. This campaign was the brainchild of a group of USA retailers and sommeliers. The Chenin Blanc Association joined the campaign in 2016.” It seems it has since moved on 6 days… like I say, every day is Chenin day. (source)

But to celebrate #drinkchenin day, we’ll take a look at a few of our favourite Chenins, that we bottle.

First up, everyone’s go to, value-for-money house white, the Secateurs Chenin Blanc; one cultivar, 28 sites! This little snapshot of our fact sheet tells you more:

On the other end of the spectrum, we make a few Chenins from single specific sites, sites with a unique expression of terroir. These wines might not get bottled every year (if a vineyard does not deliver a juice good enough it will get blended into the Secateurs or the Kalmoesfontein White Blend). The vineyards are old and the yield is low. Here is more on a few of those:

Above is a view of Dassiekop during harvest – Dassiekop, described by Adi as “the finest Chenin Blanc vineyard in SA, a place where viticulture and nature come together in perfect balance” is farmed by Franziska Wickens on Waterval farm, a few kilometers from our cellar.

And then, of course, there is always something a little bit left of field. Chenin Blanc is also the base wine of our Cape aperitif, Caperitif. Find out more about this product if you need to, on our sister site dedicated to The Ghost Ingredient.

We hope you get to enjoy a fine Chenin Blanc today and this weekend, any many more days to come. Cheers!

Single Vineyards 2018 Release

Our Single Vineyard wines are made and bottled with the express intent to respect the truth of the site. Most of these vineyards are on our farm or other slopes and valleys of the Paardeberg. We’ve been working with some for almost 9 years now and each year these vineyards show a consistansy and uniqueness that we seek out.

As Adi says “these are wines without eye-shadow…”

The one everyone is talking about (well, Tim Atkin named it his red wine discovery of the year in his 2019 South African Report… and described it as ‘delicate, ethereal and graceful’, saying, ‘it’s one of the best Cinsaults I’ve ever tasted.’) is the new kid on the block the Ringmuur Cinsault.

It’s rarer than we like our fillet, sold out from our side and most retailers, make sure to grab it if you see it anywhere.

Others returning to the line up include

– the famous Raaigras “oldest Grenache vineyard in the land” from 12 rows / 1268 vines which yields about 3 tons in a good year.

-Chenin Blancs from Dassiekop, according to Adi the “finest Chenin Blanc vineyard in South Africa”; The Golden Slopes, named after the deep yellow coloured granite in the site; Piet Bok se Steen so called after an old vigneron who lived in a tiny cottage besides the block and Klipkop – a tiny parcel planted on top of a granite outcrop in 1966.

– and just to make things a bit harder for our international agents, wines named Sk’Windjiesvlei (a Tinta Barocca planted in 1962) and Sout van die Aarde (Palomino from the West Coast just north of Dwarskersbos…)

Christian Eedes reported on (and scored) all the wines from the 2018 vintage single vineyards recently. You can read his thoughts and tasting notes here (click click).

You can buy some here.

You can read about the 2019 harvest, here.

Single vineyards vintage 2019

A visual representation of when the single vineyards on and around the farm were harvested this year.

Everything came in in the span of 27 days, starting with the cellar block on 31 Jan and ending with the Ramnasgras Cinsault (planted in 1966!) on the 27th of Feb.

The Golden Slopes (since 1968) and Klipkop (1966) Chenin Blanc vineyards are neighbors and were ripe and ready within 24hours of each other.

There was not enough Tinta Barocca (from the mysteriously names Sk’Windjiesvlei) for a SV wine this year so it went into the Family Red.

Other single vineyard wines, from a little further afield, includes:

Geelkapel White Muskadel from a vineyard in the Moutonshoek farm behind Piketberg, planted in 1984 and harvested on 18 January this year.

Sout van die aarde (Salt of the earth) Palomino is a vineyard on the west coast, just north of Dwarskersbos. The vineyard, planted in 1961, is planted in sheer limestone soil and was ready to harvest on 24 January.

And the baby of the Single Vineyards, the Bokveld Pinot Noir planted in 2006 in the Koue Bokkeveld on the Ceres Plateau, was harvested on the 19th of February.

Hello harvest my old friend…

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.

World of fine Chenin

Adi doesn’t usually get excited by media attention, ratings or awards…

But on Saturday morning, when we happened to run into each other outside Kooperasie Stories (a beautifully curated antique store on the road between Pniel and Franschhoek), the first thing he said (after handing me a juicebox) was “did you see that Fine Wine article on Chenin?”

So I knew this would be exciting recognition. And it is!

He was referring to the latest issue of The World of Fine Wine – which includes a rare Chenin tasting. A few of our wines (and even two accredited to us incorrectly, sorry Jasper and Keermont…) did well but it is the Secateurs results that got us smiling.

For an entry level wine, retailing under R100 (£12 / $15) to even show up on this list of impressive international wines is quite something. Never mind the 92 points or its position on the list…

As Tim James reports (like just now) “It was, though, above all, a good result for internationally rather unfashionable chenin, with 25 wines out of 37 scoring an average of 89 or more out of 100, meaning “very good” wine on the World of Fine Wine scale (the magazine is one of the more ungenerous scorers, I’d say). Fifteen wines came in the “outstanding” band of 92, 93 and 94 points – eight of them South African, seven French.”

Here are a few (bad quality) screengrabs of scans of the article.

Screen Shot 2018-07-02 at 16.01.52

Screen Shot 2018-07-02 at 16.01.33

Screen Shot 2018-07-02 at 15.59.48Screen Shot 2018-07-02 at 15.58.04

In other news, my gosh has it been raining in the Swartland! We received 80mm of rain in June and 56mm just this weekend (from Friday the 29th till today) and the region is finally looking lush and green – this is winter like I remember it from my childhood – and man we are loving it.

Steen sipping season

It looks like it is Chenin season in the Northern Hemisphere, and our Secateurs seems to be amongst many people’s favourite…

Over the last few weeks we’ve seen recommendations and thumbs up from all over the north. From Temple Cellars in Singapore who made us their white of the week…

35078323_2004201722947773_3612344272218488832_n

…to Paste Online Magazine’s dashing write up about Chenin (click click – read more here) which they recon “had fallen into fuddy-duddy grandpa-wine status until fairly recently” but now it’s real hip and our Secateurs is recommended cause it is “kind of… sensual, actually. Like it’s round in all the right ways and well-defined in all the right ways”…

…and Dave McIntyre recommending it in The Washington Post as a [summer] sipping wine – Secateurs definitely has its glass half full right now.

Meanwhile winemag.com wrote a lovely piece focussing on the 2015 South African vintage saying “a fantastic 2015 vintage, have created a flood tide powerful enough to finally crash on our shore, ready to break existing expectations and create a new, well-earned reputation for South African wine as a serious contender on the world stage.” and we spotted one of our own and many of our favourite wines:

red_wines_from_south_africa_

For up to date posts about all the media we spot ourselves in, keep an eye on our Facebook Page and remember to follow us on Instagram for pretty pictures from the farm and beyond.

Friday things

Never a dull moment on the Partyberg. It is Friday and there are lots of things happening on Kalmoesfontein.

The flowers are in bloom,

Screen Shot 2017-10-20 at 13.22.14

new wines are going into bottle,

Screen Shot 2017-10-20 at 13.22.27

and we’re prepping for a trade tasting (and lunch) tomorrow.

Screen Shot 2017-10-20 at 13.25.06

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.”

img_4466

and our Chenin is included in a tasting line up, in Stellenbosch (of all places).

Happy Friday indeed! Cheers.

Good report cards

The Tim Atkin SA Report 2017 is out and we got a table of wines on the 90+ list!

Say’s Tim: “Both at home and overseas, there is a growing awareness of the winemaking and viticultural revolution that is unfolding in the Cape. Consumers worldwide are becoming increasingly passionate about South African wines. And not before time! My annual report is, I hope, a part of that success.”

It sure is Tim!

Our school report reads as follows:

Tim Atkin Report 2017

Not too shabby hey Nige.

Rated!

We might not be the kind of winery that (takes time to) stick medals and awards on our wines or hang certificates on our walls (too much taxidermy and too many Tintin posters to put up!) but it is kind of nice to hear what experts think of our wines.

Experts like James Molesworth from the Wine Spectator. And so it was rather lekker to get these two ratings / write ups via our US distributors, in our inboxes last night.

screen-shot-2017-01-26-at-08-17-30
Brightly defined, with delicious quince, persimmon and green almond notes forming a core that is threaded with quinine and white ginger details. A light touch of toast on the finish lets the fruit and minerality play out. Drink now through 2019. 15,000 cases made.
–JM
 
screen-shot-2017-01-26-at-08-18-13

 White peach, yellow apple, heather and verbena notes are still tightly coiled at the core, while makrut lime and racy chamomile hints streak through the finish. This has purity and depth, and should unwind well in the cellar. Chenin Blanc, Grenache Blanc, Roussanne, Verdelho, Clairette Blanche, Viognier, Sémillon, Marsanne and Palomino. Best from 2018 through 2022. 500 cases made.

-JM

Cheers!

In the harvest time…

It feels like this heatwave has been ongoing for ever. Forever I tell you. When it is still 30’C at 10pm it is hard to imagine it will ever cool down again, ever!

But, life goes on and the grapes are starting to come in. Last week our first Shiraz was picked, 22 tons of it! Meanwhile there is some good international publicity and a few nice emails from the other side of the world.

“You know that South African cinsault we tried?” he said. “I took the opened bottle to a dinner with a load of wine trade people and they went mad for it and said it was the best wine of the night. They were raving on and on about it.”

To read more from The Telegraph on our Ramnasgras, click here.

This morning I woke up to a very nice little note of thanks and praise from a family snowed in in Michigan, USA… hard to imagine in the dry hot Swartland summer, but nice to receive anyway:

mail

“a little vacation in a bottle,” like!

On a side note, if you were lucky enough to get tickets to Cape Town’s very first Gin & Tonic Festival, taking place next Saturday, keep an eye out for Swaan, we will be mixing with some exciting new local gins!

gin&swaan