Sadie Family

'Kokerboom' Sémillon 2022

Just over an hour’s drive north of Cape Town, Eben Sadie has brought acclaim to a lesser-known region in South Africa. In 1999, looking to escape the fraternity and the surrounding noise of winemaking, Eben setup Sadie Family Wines in Swartland. The warm, dry climate of the Swartland lends itself well to organic farming, for which Sadie is passionate. But the region has also seen more frequent and more damaging drought conditions in the last twenty years than ever before. Sadie’s pioneering spirit combined with a formal education in agriculture has lent itself well to developing vineyards that are better suited to this environment. He focuses on Mediterranean varieties – Grenache, Tinta Francisca, Vermentino, Catarratto, to name a few. Many of the 28 different varieties Sadie has planted cannot be found commercially anywhere else in South Africa. His vineyards remain unirrigated. The resulting wines (both blends and single varietals) are deliciously complex with a mineral backbone highlighting the varying soils of his vineyards.