The Sadie Family Palladius 2017

Palladius

Eben Sadie then talked about his white wine – characterising it vis-à-vis the red: “Columella always was that guy at school who plays the first team in football, who dates the prom queen. Palladius was not that guy, Palladius was a battle. It was the first wine in South Africa that was a blend of all these weird grapes. When we made the first wine, we were really flying blind.

In 2003, 2004 and 2005 I had Chardonnay in the wine. I planted Viognier, Roussanne and Marsanne only to realise that the Swartland is way too hot for these varieties.”

He was very frank about his thought process: “The 2007 is a 14.6-14.7 percent wine, it is very tropical and extremely ripe, the 500 litre casks helped, and their tannin, but we realised this is too much. I was very wary of the ageing of the wine. In 2010 I diminished the percentage of Viognier, Roussanne and Marsanne. They were too ripe and too flabby, I introduced more Colombard. We also pressed everything whole bunch and in 2014 we made the complete migration into no more oak. Everything after 2014 is only in concrete eggs and in clay amphorae. We started to introduce Verdelho, old vine Sémillon, Palomino which is fully ripe at 10.5% alcohol, the Clairette Blanche and the acid of the Colombard have been a great addition.”

The wines tasted showed great personality and deservedly hold cult status. Eben Sadie is a visionary and takes his entire country forward.