
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.
Winslow’s Tavern in Wellfleet USA emailed me recently about getting more of our wines onto their winelist. I told Phillip we could do a little post on them stocking our wines and he went one better and did a post himself!
Not only do they stock our entire range but they also stock the Mullineux’s wines and soon will have Eben Sadie’s Columella and Palladius wines back on the list.
Great support for the Swartland from accross the seas. Thanks for the support.
Read their post and visit them for good Swartland wines if you are ever in Massachusetts.
Pictures from the 2011 Swartland Revolution. We know we are a tad late, but it took us a while to recover, and then we wanted to wait for the full selection of pictures from ‘neighbour’ (it’s a long bumpy drive to the Porseleinberg, but we still consider Callie & Maree neighbours) and photographer Maree, cause you know, we like to be a little different.
So here is our alternative choices of images from a revolution. If you missed it you missed out!
Some news from the United Kingdom and Europe.
One of our loyal customers in the UK, Mark Bedford, sent us a picture of him enjoying our Secateurs Red Blend in the forest after foraging for some mushrooms.
He writes:
“Here is the picture of me on a day’s wild forage – leaves, berries, wood pigeon, a few fungi – in a big forest in Oxfordshire, just last Saturday. Your wine went very well with seared wood pigeon breasts gently poached in a hawthorn, sloe and rosehip syrup, all from berries picked an hour earlier. Outstanding tucker and great wine match – though I had to share my bottle with other foragers who had not done the same detailed forward planning since ‘bottle of red wine’ was not in their kit list!”
In other parts of the Northern Hemisphere we are very proud to have our Family Wines and Secateurs on prominent display in Harrods in London and Berlin:
The One-Day-Only invasion on Saturday October 15th will include two events.
First, a FREE tasting with 3 classes:
one to introduce Swartland with Eben’s wines,
one with Chris & Stéphane Ogier (our imported guest at 2010 Revolution)
and one with Adi presenting our wines.
This will take place in a wine cellar in the Latin Quarter of Paris starting at 3pm.
Secondly there will be a wine dinner with a menu to pair with Mullinuex and Badenhorst Wines in a secret location.
Anyone interested in participating can contact Raffi Gabeyan via email at raffi.gabeyan@gmail.com.