2013 Sequillo (Eben Sadie) White Blend Swartland

Staff Reviews

RW

Ryan Woodhouse

Ryan Woodhouse

Phenomenal white wine. The nose is dominated by ripe, roasted orchard fruit, poach pears, preserved apricot and yellow peach. On the palate the wine has a rich, round palate weight, a creamy dense texture that fills the mouth, this almost has the palate feel of a rich chardonnay but without the oak flavor influence. Beyond the fruit profile there is wonderful savory lees character with with toasted grains and pie crust nuances. Underpinning all of this is a dynamic minerality from the ancient decomposed granite soils of the region. A serious multidimensional wine that is rich and crowd pleasing but also detailed, nuanced and bursting with minerality.

Notes

An rich Swartland blend of Chenin Blanc, Clairette, Verdelho, Viognier and Palomino. Then fruit for this wine comes from multiple parcels of Eben's vineyards throughout the region. Many vines are very old, own-rooted, all are dry-farmed bushvines toiling against the elements in this rugged yet inspiring place. 2013 was a cooler vintage so freshness and brightness of fruit was preserved throughout. The other important aspect of this wine is that Eben co-fermented all of the different components together, creating a more integrated and harmonious blend. The wine combines the rich textrures of Chenin with floral notes and minerality of the other grapes. From Eben: "Sequillo comes from the Latin and means 'an arid, dry place of great purity': a very good description of the Swartland in South Africa. It is the Swartland that we strive to capture in our Sequillo wines, vintage after vintage. Our wines must reflect their soils and have a strong sense of place; and this expression of place must be unrefined and unfiltered. We strive to produce wines which are unique and honest and that rather display minerality and origin as opposed to more opulent flavours; therefore we take utmost care in the vineyards, as this is the DNA integrity which should make it through to the bottle. Our winemaking is time-honoured and traditional and we avoid the intervention of technology and mechanisation."