The Joy of Missing Out
“I don’t like driving hey. We live here on the farm, we live among the vines, we feel the season here, and that’s lekker.” - Adi Badenhorst.
Adi says that someone once asked Serge Hochar of the Lebanese Château Musar what he thought of the 1972 vintage. He says Serge looked at the person and asked: Is that a question? Instead of talking about the weather, Serge answered. In 1978, his flat was bombed in Beirut and he had pushed up his cupboard against the door, grabbed the 1972 from where he was sitting against the door, and drank the wine throughout the night as he kept vigil. The next morning, when he woke up, his neighbours had been killed, his life changed forever, but what he remembered of the 1972 vintage was the comfort it was to him that night. Far from the “wanky” (as Adi calls it) descriptions of wine (Adi says he once loved reciting the technical jargon), he found true meaning and purpose in Serge’s description and the joy of missing out on all the pomp of fine wine.
That’s Lekker
During this forced isolation of ours, 400 and something days of it, we’ve fluctuated between defiance to acceptance, fear, desolation, sometimes hysterics, and then started back at the beginning. Though by the sheer nature of LIFE, that it DOES go on, I think we sometimes forget about our innate ability to ADAPT. Once you’ve made your peace with the limitations of this current life, been isolated while sick, worried about the future, mourning a loss. You start taking comfort in the small things, you watch the weather change outside your window, you find joy in cultivating a plant or a garden, or styling your home, cultivating yeast for sourdough, or drinking one of the precious wines in your cellar, on nothing more than another quiet Tuesday waiting for the world to get better. While recently there have been more dramatic scenes for those in the North, more in keeping with Serge’s experience, our lives have become smaller, and our little pieces of the world seemingly bigger, and like Adi says: “that’s lekker.”
Be Better
Far from sticking our heads in the sand, this new AWARENESS dictates a necessary return to the basics, an understanding that if everything is falling apart, we need to be different, BETTER. And if you had to learn from anyone, Adi would be a good candidate. He IS what they mean when they talk about our rockstar winemakers. Part of the Swartland clan, with his grey beard and ponytail, his vellies, his collection of vinyl, his love of parrots, his endless projects, and his irreverently honest take on life. When I ask him what his mission statement is, he says: “You must be lekker.” He fluctuates between sounding like an oracle and talking good common sense. From “I’m like a parrot-lover, not a parrot-hunter” when I ask him about his obsession with parrots to talking with such conviction and passion of his vineyards and the way they farm. Let me set the scene.
Kalmoesfontein
If you’ve ever been to Kalmoesfontein, set in the Southern-most part of the Swartland, at the foot of Paardeberg, you’ll understand that storytelling is at the core of who they are. ‘Die werf’ / ‘the farmyard’ buzzes with activity. A troop of turkeys roam the vineyards, there are two ENORMOUS pigs in a pen, an impressive aviary of parrots, horses, dogs, taxidermy animals on shelves, horseshoes over the cellar door, a herb garden labelled with little plaques forming part of the 47 botanicals that make up Adi’s Caperitif. Kalmoesfontein, to me, seems like the unofficial hub of the Swartland. It offers accommodation, an events venue, a pizzeria on Thursdays for the people/ winemakers of the area, a working farm, home to 12 registered old vine vineyards, though, of the 75 ha under vine, almost 35 ha of those are OLD. And in 2024, there will be a library of all the varietals available in South Africa. To be planted behind Adi’s house, and serve as a reference for the industry at large. Adi runs the farm and its business with his wife and cousin. 140ha in total, they bought it in 2008 and have been getting better and better acquainted with the land and its vines, as evidenced by the wine.
The Three-Headed Swan
There is signage and symbolism in EVERYTHING they do. Because Kalmoesfontein, like South Africa, is a diverse place, from the people to the animals and the vines. Named for a water plant, Kalmoes (Acorus calamus), a hallucinogenic when consumed in large quantities and referred to by the Dutch as Swan bread or Swan fruit - their three-headed swan crest tells THAT particular story. Adi says he only ever intended to make one wine, a red and white blend, but that as he discovered the vineyards, each demanded its own wine - which meant they ended up with 15 wines in total, give or take. With names like Dassiekop - , Golden Slopes-, Kelder -, Klip Kop - and Piet Bok se Bos Steen; Sout-van-die-aarde Palomino; Sk’windjiesvlei Tinta Barocca; Raaigras Grenache; Ramnasgras AND Ringmuur Cinsault - the stories abound. “There’s no makeup and eye shadow on any of the wines. We make farmers wines.” When I ask him if he’d still like to explore another wine region, he says the Swartland is a massive region of incredible diversity, with shale and limestone soils toward Riebeek and the granite near the Paardeberg. “I don’t really want to experiment in any other region.” He says at the end of the day he likes making wine from granite, which is WHY he makes wine HERE, believing that grapes from granite create an element of freshness, or wait as he said it: “It sounds so wanky to say - but you can make nice wine from granite soils.” AND old vines, I should add. Adi also sells grapes to other producers, such as Graham Weerts, who recently released the first Dalkeith Kalmoesfontein Chenin Blanc (if you recall).
Kaapse Dief
There are other projects, of course. A plethora of unreleased fortified wines meant to age for 20 years in barrel, and the Caperitif. A Cape Vermouth or wine-based aperitif. The name originated in the Cape in the 1900s, fell out of fashion in the 1940s, and was reclaimed by Adi and his team for a “proper story”. Adi says in the old days, in France and Italy, every little chemist had a mixture of herbs for people who were feeling a bit down, or sick, “obviously KAK bitter”. The only way to make it palatable was to add sugar and alcohol - which is how vermouth started. The Caperitif today includes about 47 botanicals, not all from the farm, but combining spices, herbs and bitters, and Kalmoes (though not in any hallucinogenic quantities) for those who require a bit of a BOOST - the perfect lockdown drink.
Do You Have a Flag?
When I ask him WHY the Swartland - take into account that Adi was raised on a farm in Constantia, worked at Steenberg, Groote Post, a bit overseas, Rustenberg, AND his father-in-law is Oom Jan Boland - he says: “It’s the humility of the place.” The community of winemakers, the Swartland Independent Producers who inspire him and each other. He says the Swartland Revolution occurred because “someone just had to put a flag in the ground saying this is where quality starts.” And the wines lived up to it - it wasn’t just noise. As a member of the old vine project and the proliferation of old vines on the farm, it is no great stretch of the imagination that Adi plants to grow old. “We aren’t dogmatic. We aren’t driven by a particular production philosophy. Biodynamic, conventional, or organic, we farm vineyards as we think they should be farmed - it’s very simple.” With old vines the trick lies in farming, building up the soils, proper suckering, protecting the soil, allowing them to help themselves. “I love those old vines.”
Tangled Up in Blue
Adi loves his music. He’s got an impressive collection of vinyl in his cellar and plays it on an old turntable featuring obscure blues artists from South Africa and the continent. People like Otis Waygood, a blues band founded in the 1960s in Harare, South African blues singer Albert Frost, Freedom’s Children, a rock band from 1966, Durban - TUNES. He says his favourite is Bob Dylan’s ’Tangled Up in Blue’ - and you can hear it reverberating around the cellar. “And I was standing on the side of the road, Rain falling on my shoes, Heading out for the east coast, Lord knows I’ve paid some dues getting through, Tangled up in blue.” Of South Africa, he says: “This is the most incredible country to be alive in, to farm. We’ve got people who love wine, who understand wine now. Every day I come to work, I’ve got people of different cultural backgrounds, and we work together on this farm. South Africa has got so much complexity in its society, and that’s the beauty of this place. How do you capture that energy in a bottle?” Since I spoke to Adi the day the Rhodes memorial burned in Cape Town, South Africa has become tangled up in blue again - but we hold on and work through, keeping vigil, hopefully with a Caperitif or one of Adi’s story wines in hand, holding on to that energy of ours.
