2022 Berry Bros. & Rudd Swartland Red by The Sadie Family Wines, South Africa

2022 Berry Bros. & Rudd Swartland Red by The Sadie Family Wines, South Africa

Product: 20228170761
Prices start from £34.50 per bottle (75cl). Buying options
2022 Berry Bros. & Rudd Swartland Red by The Sadie Family Wines, South Africa

Buying options

Available for delivery or collection. Pricing includes duty and VAT.

Description

For a limited time, Cellar Plan members can enjoy a 20% saving on this wine, with the discount automatically applied at checkout. This offer will revert to 10% at midday on December 16th.

Splurge on the magnificent 2022 Berry Bros Swartland Red by the Sadie family. It’s a wonderfully seductive Syrah with layer after layer of fat, fleshy, spicy incense and bramble fruit.

Jane MacQuitty, The Times (February 2024)

Tasting note

We’re thrilled to work with the legendary Eben Sadie for our Swartland Red, a new addition to our Own Selection. Eben has planted some incredible new vineyards over the last decade. In the future, he’ll use the fruit of these young vines for his signature wines. But he is working exclusively with us on our Swartland Red and Swartland White. The precise blend will change from one year to the next; our 2022 Swartland Red is made from 100% Syrah fruit. With pure, freshly picked raspberries on the nose, the palate has deep, fleshy, bramble fruits and gravelly minerality. A delicate umami note lingers on the invigorating finish.

Catriona Felstead MW, Senior Buyer, Berry Bros. & Rudd

wine at a glance

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Critics reviews

Decanter94/100

Berry Bros has joined forces with top South African winemaker Eben Sadie to produce its own-label Swartland red – and it's a stunner. From young vineyards that will eventually provide fruit for Sadie's own wines when they're more mature, this is 100% Syrah. Beautifully expressive with appealing aromatics of floral red fruit dusted with white pepper. Such energy and presence on the palate; pure, luscious cherry fruit, fresh acidity, a core of minerality and a savoury glimmer on the lingering finish.

Drink 2023 - 2026

Julie Sheppard, Decanter.com (September 2023)

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About this WINE

The Sadie Family Wines

The Sadie Family Wines

Eben Sadie started his winemaking career working for Charles Back’s Spice Route-labelled wines before breaking out on his own in 1999. Since the first release of Columella with the 2000 vintage, he has acquired a reputation as the most innovative and inspired winemaker in South Africa.

His goal is to produce an expression of a region or specific site. This is the philosophy that drives the production of his Signature Series wines – Columella and Palladius. Columella (predominantly Syrah with a little Mourvèdre, Grenache, Carignan and Cinsault) is one of South Africa’s very best wines, if not the best, named after one of the wine trade’s earliest scribes. It is a blend of old-vine fruit from eight Swartland vineyards, spending 24 months in oak (with only a small proportion that is new) and is racked every six months. Eben’s white wine, Palladius, is arguably more impressive still; it is a delicious blend of 11 varieties from 17 different vineyard sites, with old, bush-vine Chenin Blanc playing the leading role.

The Signature Series was joined by the Old Vine Series (Die Ouwingerdreeks in Africaans) with its first commercial release in 2010. This range of wines is the fruition of a project very close to Eben’s heart. He worked with renowned viticulturalist, Rosa Kruger, to seek out, revitalise, and in some cases, save old vineyards throughout the Cape. These highly sought-after wines are produced in very limited volumes and offer an incredible vinous insight into South Africa’s grape growing and winemaking history. These, and the Signature Series, are incredible wines from a winemaker at the top of his game.

It is hardly surprising that Sadie Family Wines has been awarded the title of the Platter Guide’s Winery of the Year twice (in 2010 and 2015).

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Swartland

Swartland

After Stellenbosch, the west coast district of Swartland (25 miles due north of Cape Town, between the towns of Malmesbury and Piketberg) now ranks as the Cape's most exciting wine-producing district.

Settled initially by nomadic Khoikhoi from Namibia, the Dutch brought trade and vines to the region in the 17th century. Viticulture was developed only more recently.

This contrasts with an ancient geology which has brought a mix of shale, arenite sandstone and granite soils air-conditioned by the Atlantic Ocean nearby.

Chenin Blanc and Shiraz seem to do best, as exemplified by the wines of Eben Sadie and Mullineux.

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Syrah/Shiraz

Syrah/Shiraz

A noble black grape variety grown particularly in the Northern Rhône where it produces the great red wines of Hermitage, Cote Rôtie and Cornas, and in Australia where it produces wines of startling depth and intensity. Reasonably low yields are a crucial factor for quality as is picking at optimum ripeness. Its heartland, Hermitage and Côte Rôtie, consists of 270 hectares of steeply terraced vineyards producing wines that brim with pepper, spices, tar and black treacle when young. After 5-10 years they become smooth and velvety with pronounced fruit characteristics of damsons, raspberries, blackcurrants and loganberries.

It is now grown extensively in the Southern Rhône where it is blended with Grenache and Mourvèdre to produce the great red wines of Châteauneuf du Pape and Gigondas amongst others. Its spiritual home in Australia is the Barossa Valley, where there are plantings dating as far back as 1860. Australian Shiraz tends to be sweeter than its Northern Rhône counterpart and the best examples are redolent of new leather, dark chocolate, liquorice, and prunes and display a blackcurrant lusciousness.

South African producers such as Eben Sadie are now producing world- class Shiraz wines that represent astonishing value for money.

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When is a wine ready to drink?

We provide drinking windows for all our wines. Alongside the drinking windows there is a bottle icon and a maturity stage. Bear in mind that the best time to drink a wine does also depend on your taste.

Not ready

These wines are very young. Whilst they're likely to have lots of intense flavours, their acidity or tannins may make them feel austere. Although it isn't "wrong" to drink these wines now, you are likely to miss out on a lot of complexity by not waiting for them to mature.

Ready - youthful

These wines are likely to have plenty of fruit flavours still and, for red wines, the tannins may well be quite noticeable. For those who prefer younger, fruitier wines, or if serving alongside a robust meal, these will be very enjoyable. If you choose to hold onto these wines, the fruit flavours will evolve into more savoury complexity.

Ready - at best

These wines are likely to have a beautiful balance of fruit, spice and savoury flavours. The acidity and tannins will have softened somewhat, and the wines will show plenty of complexity. For many, this is seen as the ideal time to drink and enjoy these wines. If you choose to hold onto these wines, they will become more savoury but not necessarily more complex.

Ready - mature

These wines are likely to have plenty of complexity, but the fruit flavours will have been almost completely replaced by savoury and spice notes. These wines may have a beautiful texture at this stage of maturity. There is lots to enjoy when drinking wines at this stage. Most of these wines will hold in this window for a few years, though at the very end of this drinking window, wines start to lose complexity and decline.