Pictures from a Swartland Roadtrip - Lunch at BBBS

Lunchtime! The best burgers in the world at Bar Bar Black Sheep in Riebeek Kasteel. We chose the lamb burgers to match with the unlabelled bottle of 2010 vintage Collumella - a gift from Eben Sadie.

The menu makes it hard to choose! and Swartland Revolution glasses (for water)...

Lamb burger with guacamole and bacon. YUM!

Reflections of a great meal.

Unlabelled 2010 Collumella... Bliss!

Pictures from a Swartland Roadtrip - Porseleinberg

Callie and Maree Louw lives on top of the Porcelain Mountain with spectacular views of the Swartland. Real cowboy country as you have to follow directions like "past the second goat camp", "Left at the big cactus" and "through the gate with the hole in" and you have to get out to open 3 gates to get there.

But the view is worth it!

Callie's mobile chicken homes - the african chickens will eventually live in the vineyards.

These African chickens lay great organic eggs:)

Dusan and Callie talking soil.

Pictures from a Swartland Roadtrip - Sadie Family Wines

Second stop was a visit to Dusan's local wine hero, Eben Sadie.

The Ou Wingerdreeks

Inspiration in the cellar.

"I only use elements that comes from the earth, wood, clay and cement." No steel in this cellar!

It is all about the soil, or terroir, with Eben.

Pictures from a Swartland Roadtrip - Badenhorst Family Wines

On Tuesday Swartland Revolution PR and Marketing manager Helena Sheridan took Dusan Jelic from wine.co.za on a Swartland roadtrip. First stop was Kalmoesfontein and while Adi was still in the USA Jasper Wickens, assistant winemaker, conducted the tasting.

Early morning tasting required coffee from the cellar espresso machine to kick start things.

Swartland Splendour

Jasper conducting a tasting with Dusan.

Badenhorst Family Wines assistant wine maker Jasper with the "magnificent red."

Latest addition to the family - Koos Jan!

11.11.11 Save The Date!

AA Badenhorst Family Wines, Mullineux Family Wines, Porceleinberg Wines, Sequillo Cellars and The Sadie Family Wines would like to invite you to the second annual Swartland Revolution Weekend.

When: 11 – 12 November 2011

Where: Riebeek Kasteel

After the overwhelming success of the inaugural Swartland Revolution weekend in 2010 we will bring you a bigger, better Revolution in 2011.

The action kicks off with registration at the Royal Hotel on Friday 11 November 2011.

This year’s programme will include three tastings of top international and Swartland wines; another delicious BBQ by celeb chef Reuben Riffel; lunch at the ever popular Bar Bar Black Sheep and another open tasting for all members of the new Swartland Independent to showcase their best natural wines.

This year there will be 250 weekend packages available (at R1750 pp) as well as a limited number of Dinner (R500 pp) / Lunch (R325 pp) and Breakfast (R75) only tickets.

The Swartland Independent Street Party on Saturday afternoon is also once again open to the public at R50 pp.

Tickets are available now from Webtickets.co.za.

Feedback from 2010:

“...the best wine event that I have ever attended. A perfect mix of serious tasting of seriously good wines, with a good measure of fun and festivity. The food was simply superb, the venues and layout spot on, the speech from Michael in particular absolutely brilliant. Honestly I feel sorry for those who thought they should miss this one. Bring on 2011 – and count me in!”

Erica Meles-Liebenberg – MelesPR

“It was fantastic and a HUGE privilege for me to be part of something so special. You’ve done a
fantastic job, something that’s organised, but still driven by 100% soul.”

Pieter Walser - BLANKbottle

“My wife asked me how it was this morning when I got back, and I said that it was like 'Woodstock... but without the sex'.”

Raffi Gabeyan – French Importer

“Thank you all so much for a wonderful feast of fine wine, delicious food, knowledge, opinions and passion. I thought you guys pulled off a world class performance from the very start right through until the end.”

Alex & Caryn Starey - Keermont Vineyards

“I can confidently say that the Swartland Revolution was by far the most enjoyable wine event I have been to. It was run with Germanic efficiency but full of South African gees. There was a balance between formal tastings and lounging on the grass sipping Bollinger. We ate till we were fit to burst, and drank till we were dancing (read: falling off) hay bales, we chatted & laughed, sipped and smiled; this was a revolution against boring wines, against boring events; this was a revolt against the plain and the sad, the straight and the narrow; it was simply a benchmarking of joie de vivre.”

Harry Reginald Haddon - http://wineandi.wordpress.com

Harvest news~

A short bit of news from the Mullineux Cellar is that they've finished harvesting all their white grapes and are getting stuck into the reds in a big way this week!

The heat is keeping the whole Swartland on its toes, but so far everything looks good as you can see from these lovely pictures!

Harvesting Steen

Hanging out the straw wine!

On the other side of the Riebeek Mountain, in the Paardeberg Adi Badenhorst and team are also in full harvest swing on Kalmoesfontein.

Everyone has jumped in to help get the grapes in to the cellar in the scorching Swartland sun. Cousins are becoming drivers, Jasper Wickens is once again our assistant winemaker and even young Samuel Badenhorst is getting in on the action (winemaker in training!).

Neighbour Barry Schreiber was there to count every berry of Chenin Blanc and we have a female French import, harvest hand Helena Kotzev. Here they are loading the press.

In good Taste...

The 2010 Swartland Revolution featured in a lovely colourful story in the Jan/Feb 2011 issue of Woolworth's Taste Magazine.

Lovely pictures by Greg Cox and our own photographer Maree Louw along with a in-depth article by Sumien Brink and Jocelyn Warrington follows the journey to the event from concept right through to the amazing wines and food on show on the weekend.

A nice insight into what you missed if you weren't there in 2010, and what we are building on to make 2011 even better...

Buy this TASTE Jan/Feb 2011 issue today, and turn straight to page 78!