The Sadie Family Wines

There is no more influential winemaker in South Africa than Eben Sadie. When he founded The Sadie Family Wines in 1999, the Swartland was dismissed as wheat and tobacco country -- a hot, arid region north of Cape Town where nobody serious about wine would think to plant. Sadie thought otherwise, and in doing so he rewrote the map of South African wine.

Before returning home, Sadie had wandered. A surfer first, then a student of wine, he worked harvests in Germany, Austria, Italy, Oregon, and Burgundy -- absorbing the old-world conviction that great wine begins in the soil. Back in South Africa, he joined Charles Back at The Spice Route in 1998, quickly becoming chief winemaker and earning Back's description as a 'national asset for the South African wine industry.' But Sadie's ambition was singular: to prove that the ancient soils of the Swartland could produce wines of world-class complexity.

The proof arrived in 2000 with the first vintage of Columella, a Syrah-Mourvedre blend named after the Roman agricultural writer Columella. Just 17 barrels -- roughly 5,000 bottles -- were produced from eight different vineyard sites. Columella became the highest-rated South African wine ever, the only to achieve 95 points from Wine Spectator, and a benchmark that reframed international perceptions of what the country could achieve. Two years later came Palladius, a white blend of Chenin Blanc with Grenache Blanc, Roussanne, Marsanne, Viognier, Clairette, and Chardonnay, named after another Roman agricultural authority. The initial production was seven barrels -- fewer than 2,000 bottles. Together, these two wines established a new category: icon-level South African wine with intellectual ambition and terroir integrity.

But Sadie's most profound contribution may be the Old Vine Series -- Die Ouwingerdreeks -- launched to preserve and celebrate South Africa's irreplaceable heritage of ancient vines. Each wine comes from a single old vineyard, some with vines planted as far back as the 1880s, and each is named in Afrikaans for a feature of its landscape. Treinspoor (train track), from Tinta Barocca in the Swartland. Soldaat (soldier), from Grenache in Piekenierskloof. Pofadder (puff adder), from Cinsault on the Riebeek Mountain. Skurfberg, from Chenin Blanc in the Citrusdal Mountain. Kokerboom (quiver tree), from Semillon planted in the 1930s. Skerpioen (scorpion), a field blend of Chenin Blanc and Palomino from the West Coast. T'Voetpad (the footpath), from a field blend with vines dating to 1887. And Mev. Kirsten (Mrs. Kirsten), from the oldest Chenin Blanc vineyard in the Swartland.

Sadie farms biodynamically across all his sites, working obsessively on soil health. He has been described as an enfant terrible, a celebrity winemaker, and by supporters as 'one of the greatest and most original winemakers in the southern hemisphere.' The truth is simpler: he is a man who believes that the oldest vines on the poorest soils, tended with absolute care, produce wines that no amount of money or technology can replicate. The Sadie Family does not operate a tasting room. The wines are allocated, collected, and revered.