The Sadie Family Treinspoor 2024

This cuvée comes from Malmesbury, in the Swartland, north of Cape Town. The vineyard of old bush vines runs alongside a disused railway line, the treinspoor that gives it its name. The vines grow on an alluvial plain of sandstone, granite and quartz, under an intense sun from which their foliage shields the very thin-skinned bunches.

The grapes are picked by hand, then fermented with 30% whole bunches and 70% destemmed berries, with their native yeasts. Maceration lasts 25 to 30 days, with simple manual wetting of the cap, before pressing in a vertical basket press. The wine is aged for 12 months in old wooden conical vats, then bottled on its fine lees.

This wine reveals notes of black plum, dried fig, violet, graphite, pencil lead, spices, wild herbs and dried flowers. Black fruit and floral notes mingle with a very assertive mineral touch. The palate is dense and tight, structured by multi-layered tannins and a firm finish of remarkable length.

The first vines were planted in South Africa by Dutch settlers in the 1650s, although wine production did not really begin to take off until the arrival of French Protestants, in the 1680s, with their skills and their knowledge of viticulture. Stellenbosch is also a historic wine region, with the first vineyards being planted there in the 1690s.



Today South Africa is one of the most important wine producing countries in the southern hemisphere. With over 300 years of winemaking history, it is often described as a bridge between the Old and New Worlds. The majority of wines are produced using New World winemaking techniques, but they often have more in common stylistically with their Old World counterparts. Since the end of apartheid, South African wine has received international attention and acclaim for its wide variety of styles.



South Africa's wine industry is spread across the lush and rugged landscape of the Western Cape. Here, the abundance of mountains, valleys and plateaus allows winemakers to produce a wide variety of styles. Vineyards can also be found in the Orange River region of the Northern Cape, where the flat, arid landscape is dominated by the Kalahari Desert. Most of South Africa's wine regions have a Mediterranean climate, strongly influenced by the meeting of the Atlantic and Indian Oceans.



The country's signature grape variety is Pinotage, an indigenous cross of Pinot Noir and Cinsaut that is rarely found in quantity in other wine-producing countries. Shiraz (Syrah) is also widely planted, as are Cabernet Sauvignon and Merlot (often combined in a Bordeaux blend). South African Chardonnay, Chenin and Sauvignon Blanc have become popular internationally in recent years.