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About the producer
Winemaker and viticulturist Eben Sadie spent eight years “roaming the world in search of answers” until he kicked off the Sadie Family project in 1999. Straight away, they gained recognition for their first wine, the Syrah-based Columella 2000, which was awarded 5 stars in the Platter Guide. All of the wines are crafted with grapes sourced from the Swartland whose expanse of wheat fields account for its traditional reputation as the Cape’s “bread basket”. However, Sadie has been at the forefront of a revolution which has seen the region develop a cult following for its Syrah and Mediterranean blends. At the heart of Sadie’s success is the identification of fine vineyards with a diversity of soil, aspect and mesoclimate. The Sadie family fully control seven leased vineyard parcels spread across the Swartland district, mostly planted with Syrah, with a tiny parcel of Mourvèdre.
In his own words, Eben strives to make wine which is fresh, flavoursome and refined, harmonious and balanced; the wines should offer a sense of the place of their origin and provide drinking pleasure at the highest level of quality, at any stage of their longevity. The purity of expression of terroir and fruit in Sadie’s wines, not to mention the name of the flagship red, owes something to the influence of Lucius Junius Moderatus Columella. Columella’s treatise on farming, De Re Rustica (the most comprehensive account of Ancient Roman viticulture), observes: "the most excellent wine is one which has given pleasure by its own natural qualities…nothing must be mixed with it which might obscure its natural taste". For Sadie, this means, primarily, farming grapes as near to perfect as possible, which demands small yields of highest quality fruit and meticulous attention in the vineyard. Subsequently, those grapes must be treated with utmost care and vinified separately in accordance with their individual plots with the least possible intervention, respecting each vineyard’s difference and allowing their characters to emerge and blend with other characters to achieve a higher complexity.
For Sadie, this means, primarily, farming grapes as near to perfect as possible, which demands small yields of highest quality fruit and meticulous attention in the vineyard. Subsequently, those grapes must be treated with utmost care and vinified separately in accordance with their individual plots with the least possible intervention, respecting each vineyard’s difference and allowing their characters to emerge and blend with other characters to achieve a higher complexity.
Vineyard
Future plans include moving towards biodynamic farming. Eben has bought a horse and is designing a plough suitable for both mule and man to allow him to work the soils more gently. Small yields farmed with meticulous attention, terroir obsessed.
Winery
A 50 tonne, white stone walled cellar in Paardeberg gives a platform to the wines made with minimal intervention. Grapes are sorted, cold-soaked, basket-pressed, fermented with native yeasts, very hands-on and gravity fed.