Adi and Eben Sadie, their (favorite) wines, good food, banter and well, expect a bit of the unexpected.
All proceeds go towards CPM, Samuel and Ana’s previous school in Malmesbury.
Check out the Facebook event or contact Flippie.
Exciting times:
Our friends Jon came to take areal shots of the farm with is drone – that’s my home!
99% of the grapes are in for harvest 2016.
We hosted the International Food and Wine Society for a “mini revolution” complete with Adi, Andrea, Callie and Eben, Where is Callie placemats, a harvest buffet by Judy Badenhorst and an informal SIP tasting. 
Caperitif also received some great publicity – keep an eye on its website for more!
We love this story from the latest issue of Wine Enthusiast. Written by Lauren Buzzeo, photographed by Maree Louw (on Kalmoesfontein) and styled by Cornelia Badenhorst, the article is a beautiful feature of the original revolutionaries – Eben Sadie ‘The Virtuoso’, Callie Louw ‘The Farmer’, Chris and Andrea Mullineux ‘The Dynamic Duo’ and Adi ‘The Personality’.
To read the full story online, click here.
For more about The Swartland Revolution, visit our website.
Maree once again took some stunning pictures at the Swartland Revolution this year. Here are a few of our favourites, lots more on her blog.
There is a nice summery of the weekend on The Swartland Revolution’s site. Have a look.
Meanwhile, our Family Red 2009 is number 93 on Wine Spectator’s Top 100 wines for 2013. Not too shabby…
Tickets for this year’s Swartland Revolution are already sold out and we only just announced the first confirmed formal tasting.
This year, the last of our Saturday tastings (the Expert Opinion slot in 2012) will feature:
Vincent Careme (Dom Vincent Careme)
Damien Delecheneau (Dom de la grange tiphaine)
and Benjamin Joliveau (Dom Huet)
Together they will show eight wines (which will be announced in due time).
SR2013 takes place on 8 and 9 November this year. There will be another epic Swartland Independent Street Party so follow @swartlandrev for more details.
Yes, this weekend past was the third annual Swartland Revolution. A weekend of great wines (from France, Germany, Portugal and naturally, the Swartland), fabulous food and lots of Swartland gees. Like one happy revolutionary observed: the right level of geeky/nerd/fun!!
Maree Louw, revolutionary wife, once again took some amazing pictures, and we gladly share them with you here.
Hiiii Eben
The first tasting, Quality First was presented by father and son team, Alain and Maxime Graillot who each showed three of their wines from France.
Adi showing Samuel some tricks of the trade.
Friday night BBQ at Bazaar, by Moerby Kultuur.
Die Baardskeerdersbos Orkes had everyone dancing. “Klein bietjie wyn, klein bietjie wyn” (lies, all lies!)
Adi and Callie in good spirits (especially considering it is 9am on THE Saturday)
Beer and worsrol break between Saturday morning tastings.
Lunch, by “the revolutionary moms” led by Adi’s mom Judy, was a huge success.
The Moms! (take a bow!)
And then there was the Swartland Independent Street Party, with 18 members pouring their wines in Short Street Square.
Including Jasper’s new venture, made on Kalmoesfontein – Muskeljaatkat!
And then it was over. Another great success, with attendees already asking “can I book for next year…”
Um, no, give us a chance to recover, celebrate summer, harvest and then once we’ve started planning, we can talk about another revolution.
Thanks for sharing in the experience!
Feedback on last week’s Cape Wine event at the Cape Town International Convention Center is looking very positive.
Reading through bloggers and journalists’ accounts of the week in the stormy Cape it seems they had just as much fun as we did.
According to Bizcommunity this year “was the show’s most successful expo to date with producer exhibitors up 15% and visitors reaching a record at just under 1500.”
Says chairman of Wines of South Africa (WOSA), Johann Krige: “Our industry has wowed the international wine community with an exciting and diverse range of quality wines and a fresh and inspiring approach that has demonstrated our world leadership in eco-sustainability and energy-efficiency among wine-producing nations. We showed very effectively that we are making better wines at all price points and that we are making wines, better.”
The Swartland Independent members all had a stall together in the back of the hall. Our funky stand attracted visitors constantly and seemed to be very popular.
“In the Swartland corner, it was exciting and very busy, especially with Adi Badenhorst there to make things happen” – John Ford, read more here.
Emile on Winegoggle simply says “dig the Swartland Grand Funk stand. Mohammed Ali poster and other non-vino artefacts. Cool dudes. I order some chickens from Callie Louw, Porseleinberg. Talk boxing with a chick from the Sandveld, goes by the name of Katrien.”
Rebecca Gibbs reports: “The Swartland has also been turning heads in the past five years and quality of the wines can’t be denied. The Rhone-like blends produced from old bush vines in this Mediterranean climate are original and interesting.”
“It was a jolly good wine show,” says Melvyn Minnaar, “Unlike other crowded wine shows where the ‘commercial’ aspects always seem to linger in the background (‘have you tasted this?, wanna buy some?), and tasters sometimes feel trapped by the expected eyes of the pourer, this show seemed to operate to a different vibe. A friendly fraternity.”
We had lots of fun living it up in the big city of Cape Town for a week. With the farm bakkie in rush hour traffic (once in sunshine with Helena, Eben and American buyer John on the back and once in pouring rain with no windscreen wipers…), dinners at Fork and Dias Tavern (just to keep it diverse) and lots of laughs with old and new friends.
The Paardeberg locals aka Partyberg regulars convened at Adi’s 40th and made an executive decision to have more parties. “People need to get together for more than just christenings, birthdays and funerals” – says Eben (Sadie).
And so we got together on Kalmoesfontein for the 1st of these “any-reason-to-party” parties- celebrating International Grenache Day (a day early).
Adi, telling us we need to have more parties. No one objected to the motion.
Breyani!
Adi giving us a tour of the gallery, winery.
This is how you open a Paardeberg Perle. Yes that is a hammer.
Most of us had a slow start to the actual Grenache day, but it was well worth it. Hope you celebrate this special grape tonight and have a great (long) weekend (for the South Africans, enjoy “braai day” and make sure there are some good wines to celebrate our great wine heritage.)
The set-up…
Adi the entertainer…
We didn’t even have to hire entertainment, they just appeared to light up our night.
Eben (Sadie) doing (pouring) what he does best…
Jasper (or like someone said to me: “that guy with the sleeveless tee, that’s danced with every girl here”)
Plaas party pants…
We didn’t (need to) hire a pole-dancer either! Winning…
So there you have it, if your memory fails you, yes there was a crazy party in the bos on the berg… till next year, cheers!
It’s true – if you use an old photo of Adi in a current article you can still call him a young gun!
Following up on the article by Matthew Jukes that we shared here on our blog at the end of 2011, here are the pages from December’s Decanter magazine.
Badenhorst Family Wines 