Planning the cellar expansion
ceramics by ceramicmatters.blogspot.com
elle deco shoot on the farm
A Secateurs a day keeps the mosquitoes away…
Papegaai exclusively at &union.
Our 2013 Harvest t-shirts – front.
Our 2013 harvest t-shirts – back.
One of the fashion stories in the latest issue of Sarie was shot on Kalmoesfontein.
So versatile we are…
Styled by Amaria Carstens &Chris Viljoen.
The Grade R’s from Samuel’s school in Malmesbury (where he is in the “big school” Grade 1 this year) came to help stomp some grapes on Kalmoesfontein yesterday.
Last night was the first Adi and Jasper show (as Justin called it) of 2013 – the WineGems tasting at &union.
A full house (Gemma says she takes 18 bookings, but there were at least 30 people squeezed into the bar) tasted both the Secateurs, the Family Red and White blend, the funky white and were also treated to (another) sneak peak of Jasper’s first offering – a red blend and a chenin blanc.
From what I see on twitter the crowd really enjoyed it. With Adi on top form – full of jokes and stories – and Jasper taking his time to tell the Muskeljaatkat story in detail – there were lots of laughs.
Some feedback on twitter:
Batonage: Awesome evening of wine tasting. @AABadenhorst wines and some Muskeljaatkat white and red @andUnionwine. Adi most amusing winemaker in SA.
Blackdelilah: Did I mention we had an AWESOME wine tasting @andUnionwine last night? Wines by @AABadenhorst & his able-bodied assistant, Jasper #goodstuff
JustLisa_Love: @AABadenhorst @andUnionwine – awesome left field tasting for our first#WineGems of 2013 – loved it!
darrynvdwalt: Best @andUnionwine #winegems in ages – haven’t laughed so much at a wine tasting. Legends! @AABadenhorst
LiLi1866: @AABadenhorst Best #winegems so far last night!! A stand-up comedy show & wine tasting rolled into one – amazing 🙂
I tried to tweet some of the Adinisms and quotes from the ‘comedy show’ – check out our twitter stream if you want to see more.
My favourites:
AABadenhorst: We work on psychological ripeness. You don’t wanna pick on a Friday for instance. – Adi, duh.
AABadenhorst: “This is not a pretty wine but it’s made to drink. We drink LOTS of this” – Adi. #secateurs Red
AABadenhorst: When is harvest over? Well the #oesAf party is on 22 March, so before then…
YES. We put some dates in diaries over dinner (at the ping pong table)
I also have dates for two tasting brunches, but I have a long waiting list to inform of that first. But watch this space for more details soon.
Thanks Gemma and everyone who showed up, tasted, laughed, bough wine and and and. Love you guys…
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.)
A few words from a man of many words. Adi gives some feedback on our spring day brunch / “Secateurs launch”
“Was a moerse lekker kuier on Saturday, I think we had more fun than the guests!
There was enough wine and food to go around. Some people left their cars in Malmesbury with broken gear boxes and still made it to the farm in time and then pitched in to make delicious salads to go with the late afternoon chicken and rabbit pies!
Harry helped plant tomatoes and beans – he will be back in 90 days to collect the harvest – much like he did with the Secateurs (Harry spent a few days on the farm harvesting in February and then came to drink as much as he could of the new release on Saturday!)
Roland from wine cellar even bought a bottle of wine in case ours was not up to scratch! Thanks for the Drouhin Roland!
Melissas staff brought lovely flowers and we now have a very cool collection of Melissas hand-me-down cafe chairs in and around the old house.
In general it was a fantastic bunch of people gathered together on a beautiful Swartland day.”
So there you have it, thanks for all the support and look forward to seeing you all at the next one!
Some photos with love and thanks to Maree Louw, I am sure she snapped pictures while husband Callie braaiied the chickens?
See more photos on Maree’s naturallight photography Facebook album.
DC food writer “Tasty Trix” attended our 5-course tasting-pairing in Baltimore recently and wrote a very flattering and fun blogpost about it.
“The dinner was structured around the South African wines of A.A. Badenhorst, and the pairings, conceived by chef Josean Rosado, managed to be smart and inventive without feeling at all gimmicky or forced – all of the elements worked together organically and unforgettably.”
Of Adi she says, quite accurately,
“Although I have not met the winemaker Adi Badenhorst, I suspect that, given what I learned over the course of the evening about his independent spirit and originality both in his approach to winemaking and life, he would definitely approve of such spontaneity.”
See some lovely photos by her husband as well as some nice tasting/pairing notes here.
If you will excuse me, I feel a sudden great hunger coming over me.
If you are in the George / Knysna / Plettenberg Bay / Mosselbay area – don’t miss the NLR Wines Trade show on the weekend of 16-18 August.
Nelmarie is our distributor for the Garden Route and will be pouring not only our wines, but wines from all of her wonderful clients.
Badenhorst Family Wines 