2022 Sadie Family Columella
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How full and heavy the wine feels in your mouth, like the difference between skimmed milk and cream. More alcohol, sugar and oak ageing make a wine fuller.
The drying, grippy feel on your gums and tongue, as with strong tea. It comes from the skins and seeds of black grapes and from oak, and softens with age.
How much sugar you taste, from dry to sweet. Fruity is not the same as sweet: a dry wine can taste of ripe fruit.
How fresh and juicy the wine is: acidity makes your mouth water. High acidity tastes lively and refreshing, low acidity soft and round.
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The bars follow how sommeliers taste (WSET): body, tannin, sweetness and acidity, each from low to high.
Body: full-bodied. Like most red wines from ; 13.5% alcohol.
Tannin: firm. Aged in oak.
Sweetness: dry. Red wine from is almost always dry.
Acidity: medium. The warm climate of .
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Log inColumella is the top model among the red wines of the Sadie Family. It is a blend of Cariñena, Cinsault, Garnacha, Mourvèdre, Syrah, Tinta Barocca and is a bit like Telmo Rodrigues makes his wines - Field blends instead of one-man sausages. Eben Sadie and The Sadie Family in South Africa play a pioneering role just like Telmo. The Columella has a very limited production and is naturally hand-picked with fermentation with indigenous yeasts in open cement tanks of 3300 liters for 3 weeks. Maceration of another 3 weeks afterwards. No further additives. The malolactic fermentation in oak barrels of which only around 5% is new wood (French oak) and the rest are used barrels. After 12 months of maturation, the wine is matured in large wooden foeders for another year with maturation on the yeast cells. After 2 years the wine is then bottled without being filtered or clarified.
In the glass this unique Columella has a deep ruby red colour with a pale ruby red rim at the core. The Columella explodes from the glass with dark red fruit aromas of black raspberry, plum and dark cherry with a seductive layer of red flowers and baking spices. The wine is super elegant with nothing too much or too little. It is bursting with fruit and with a perfect alcohol content of (only) 13.2% the wine has an impeccable balance, juicy acidity and lifting tannins. The wine somersaults in the mouth revealing new layers of black olives and black cherries before closing with a long finish. This is a wine that once you have taken a sip, you will be seduced, seduced and can't put down. This wine remains beautiful for decades and receives high ratings every year.
FACT: In the tab 'Attachments' you will find the official fact sheet of this beautiful wine. We will automatically send you this when you order this wine. The wine is in our conditioned Wine Warehouse and if you come to pick up the wine you will often also receive a nice discount . You will see your discount immediately when you choose 'Pick up' on the checkout page. We are located in Dordrecht almost next to the A16 with plenty of parking. Click here for our address.
Character
The wine
Origin
Bottle
Wine features
Parker
The Wine Advocate
RP 97
Reviewed by:
Monica Larner
Release Price:
$160
Drink Date:
2027 - 2048
One of South Africa's most critically acclaimed wines, this is a very complicated blend of Syrah, Mourvèdre, Grenache, Carignan, Cinsault, Tinta Barocca and Pinotage. Syrah leads at 38% of the total. The Sadie Family's 2022 Swartland Columella boasts unique DNA that cannot be replicated given that fruit is sourced from across 12 vineyard sites with a mix of granite, slate, gravel and sandstone. These sites are Paardeberg (with seven vineyards), Kasteelberg (with three vineyards), Malmesbury (with one vineyard) and Piquetberg (also one vineyard). Blending is never done in the winery. Instead, parcels are picked in sequence and co-fermented. The same blocks are always used. It matures over 24 months to show enormous balance and length. Columella is texturally rich and caressing with grippy tannins that need more time to fully resolve. The 2022 vintage is terrific, Eben Sadie tells me during our tasting in his newly finished winery, whereas 2024 was challenging. The bouquet on the 2022 is chiseled and etched with a note of pencil shaving or white pepper that cedes to dark fruit, spice and heritage rose.
Founded in 1999 by Eben Sadie, The Sadie Family estate in the Swartland is celebrated across the world for its commitment to terroir-driven wines made with minimal intervention. Eben Sadie is a pioneer in organic and biodynamic farming across different soils, including granite, slate, alluvial and weathered sandstone.
"The geological pull is what brought me here," says Eben Sadie, who works with 38 varieties (experimental and non) across 54 vineyard sites.
I visited The Sadie Family twice last year. On my first visit in January, a large off-the-grid winery was under the last phase of construction. On my second visit in October, I saw the finished results. The two flagship wines are the red blend Columella and the white blend Palladius. The portfolio includes world-class expressions (with some of the best Chenin Blanc made anywhere) in the Old Vine Series.
Eben Sadie does not care for trellised vines. "We need to scale away from the sun, not toward it," he says. The goblet system is the world's oldest training system, going back 7,000 or 8,000 years, he explains, and suddenly trellising was introduced a mere 140 years ago. Vertical shoot positioning (or VSP) attracts more solar radiation, he says.
The Sadie Family is a Robert Parker Wine Advocate Green Emblem recipient (since 2021) for its commitment to sustainability and its environmental stewardship.
The winemaking formula usually sees 35% whole-bunch fruit and 65% destemmed fruit. Aging is always in old foudre, with the youngest wood being eight years old. Fermentations are executed with extreme care. "We used to make wine like coffee, now we make it like tea," says Eben Sadie.
Published: Jun 05, 2025
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James Suckling
Score
98
Avg Price (ex-tax)
$ 148
Sadie Family Swartland Columella 2022
Saturday, Oct 26, 2024
Color
Red
Country
South Africa
Region
Coastal Region
Vintage
2022
Deep, seductive aromas of violets, green tea, coffee beans, oranges, mulberries, peach pits and smoked paprika spring from the glass. It’s seamless, layered and incredibly complex, with medium body and polished, sleek tannins. It has lovely brightness of fruit and a floral sweetness in the mid-palate. Focused at the end. Fantastic. A blend of syrah, mourvedre, grenache, carignan, cinsault and tinta barroca from 12 vineyards in the Swartland. Try after 2026.
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Vinous
95
Drinking Window
2026 - 2048
From: South Africa: Where Are We Now? (Sep 2024)
The 2022 Columella has the lowest alcohol level ever bottled for this cuvée, at 13.2%. It is a blend of Syrah, Mourvèdre, Grenache, Cinsault and Tinta Barocca. This takes time to open on the nose and is quite introspective at first, gently unfurling scents of potpourri, undergrowth and brambly red berry fruit. The palate is medium-bodied with fine tannins. There’s a real a sense of symmetry and focus here—a much "cooler" Columella than older vintages, with a sapid finish that urges you back for another sip. Eben Sadie said he would finish the rest of the bottle the night after my tasting…I can see why.
- By Neal Martin on August 2024
Last year, Eben Sadie walked me through his winery, which was basically just four walls and half a roof. Twelve months and a lot of sleepless nights later, the finishing touches are being applied. Wow, it’s impressive. Every last detail has been considered in terms of functionality, aesthetics and sustainability. In the upstairs tasting room, you find a fully-equipped kitchen that most restaurants can only dream about, though Sadie has no plans to open one. It’s for his workers. Indeed, he stressed the importance of hiring local skilled labor. Downstairs, I walked through the vat room that has a high-ceilinged, cathedral-like design. All that’s missing is a stained-glass window. In Bordeaux, this would not look out of place, but in Swartland, it is a statement that is a testament to everything Sadie has achieved. It is concurrent with a turning of the page as his two sons, Markus and Xander, take increasing roles in the estate’s running. The 2023s, the last to be vinified in the old cellar, were on show. I asked Sadie his views on the growing season.
“We used to pick over two months, but we now pick over 4 to 5 weeks,” Sadie explained. “Everything got massively compressed, but the new cellar gives us a logistical advantage. The 2023 and 2024 vintages have been difficult because of that compression. We are struggling with an absence of proper spring. Our summers start late, and picking dates [for each of the vineyards around the Cape] are around the same time. So, there's three weeks less hang time that affects early ripening more than late-ripening grapes because the acid breaks down much quicker and can end up with 0.75% more alcohol unless you have no acid left. Potassium take-up in grapes is much greater, so since 2015, we have started de-stemming a lot more [since the stems hold potassium that reduces acidity]. Our major consideration is to be able to plant new varieties, and so we are interplanting around 15% of the area with varieties that have higher acid retention, such as Colombard, Petit Manseng and Grillo.”
There is no point in analyzing every wine, as my euphoric tasting notes express how impressive his 2023 is. But I must mention the second vintage of his Chenin Blanc, the 2023 Rotsbank, which sent tingles down my spine with its nascent energy and complexity. Also, his white blend Palladius, the 2022 vintage, is the wine that Eben said he had always wanted to make and certainly the best that I have tasted.
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After years of work in Priorat and the founding of Terroir al Limit, Eben Sadie has returned to his roots. To put it in his own words: "A winemaker should make wines in his region of origin. Where he should know the terroir best." The wine world has some heroes, and Eben Sadie is one of them.
Eben graduated as an oenologist in Elsenburg (South Africa). There he became integrated by the vine: a plant that offers so much diversity, 5000 varieties all over the world. Sadie traveled the world for 8 years, working both in companies that make 6 million liters of wine annually and in companies that only produce 6 barrels. He ended up in Germany, France, Spain, Austria, Oregon and California, before returning to his native South Africa. There he is now counted among the new guard winemakers who want to give the New World a better reputation.
He settled in Swartland (1999), a new wine region for South Africa. At the same time, he resolutely broke with the New World custom of making wines from a single grape variety: he chose blends of complementary grape varieties. He based the reason for this on a sober analysis: "All over the world, wines from different grape varieties are made in a Mediterranean, southern climate, while wines from a single grape variety mainly occur in a continental, more northern climate.
Most countries there enjoy a Mediterranean climate, but they still started making wines from one grape variety: Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot, Chardonnay and so on. This was successful in the beginning, because it was new and because the grape variety was strongly placed in the foreground. But you don't make really great wines with that. As a result, the New World scores well in the lower price ranges, but is not seen as a supplier of great wines. I want to change that."
Sadie immediately put his vision into practice. He planted the grape varieties that give the best results in the southern Rhône region: Syrah, Grenache and Mourvèdre. 43 ha spread over 48 different plots, biodynamically treated and processed. He also managed to discover numerous old vineyards, restore them and give them a new lease of life (Ouwingerd series). And just like in the time of Terroir al Limit, he gave the wines individuality and provided them with his own signature, that of refinement.
The Swartland region extends north of Cape Town, between Durbanville and Piketberg, inland from the Atlantic Ocean, with Malmesbury in the middle. The region has a very stable climate, which means that a very consistent quality can be achieved every year. All grapes come from non-irrigated vineyards located in the Swartland region. Eben Sadie is a wine philosopher in many ways. As a result, he uses many old techniques in combination with experiments.
For example, he ferments parts of his wine in large concrete 'eggs', Stöckinger foeders, amphorae and he uses wooden barrels that have not been toasted. He has also started an experiment with fermenting in jars made from the soil around the winery and buried during the fermentation. This technique is very old and originates from the Balkan region.
Columella 2022 toont een complex smaakpalet van donkere bramen en pruim, gecentreerd door viooltjes en potloodslijpsel, met fijne kruidigheid, sappige zuurgraad en stevige maar verfijnde tannines. Daardoor vormt hij een perfecte begeleider van rundvlees, lamsgerechten, rijpe kazen en rijke stoofschotels omdat het donkere fruit en de zoute, licht rokerige tonen de umami en vetten in deze gerechten aanvullen en de tannines voor balans en structuur zorgen. Bereidingen met geconcentreerde smaken werken het beste, denk aan gegrild of langzaam gegaard vlees, kruidige lamsschotels met rozemarijn en knoflook, volle, gerijpte harde kazen en stoofpotten of tajines waarin de saus inkookt en verdiept.
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