A.A. Badenhorst The Curator Red 2023
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The Land
Nobody expects Cabernet Sauvignon from the Swartland. This is South Africa's oldest and largest wine district, known for dry-farmed bush vines, warm Mediterranean summers, and Syrah and Chenin rather than Bordeaux varieties. The fruit for this wine comes off dry-farmed bush vines on granite and slate soils in the Swartland and the country immediately around it, some of those vines well over a century old. Granite drains fast and holds almost nothing; slate holds heat. Neither gives a vine an easy time, and neither leaves room for high yields. That is the reason a wine at this price can taste farmed rather than manufactured, and it is why the parcels are still picked by hand and chilled overnight before they reach the cellar.
The Wine
The 2023 is 90 percent Cabernet Sauvignon and 10 percent Pinotage, which is not what a Swartland label leads you to expect and is better than it sounds. Pinotage in a supporting role adds red fruit and a smoky top end without taking the wine over. It matures six months in concrete tanks and old casks, so what wood does here is textural rather than flavoring, and it finishes at 14 percent alcohol under screwcap. Dark currant, plum, dried herb, and a graphite edge, with tannins that are firm without drying you out. The 2023 Swartland season followed a dry, warm winter that cut the crop; Malmesbury got roughly half its usual winter rain. December thunderstorms helped, harvest ran without serious heat waves, and late-February rain pushed the final picking into a cold, wet finish. Cabernet ripened earlier than growers expected and had to come in fast.
The People
The Curator is a partnership between Adi Badenhorst and the American importer Broadbent Selections, started in 2011 around a single question: what does a genuinely farmed Swartland wine cost when nobody is paying for a fancy label. Fruit comes from long-established Swartland farms and select parcels that would otherwise be absorbed into large commercial blends, which amounts to a real form of preservation for old bush-vine plantings with no other route to market. Adi Badenhorst farms Kalmoesfontein and Jakkalsfontein on the Paardeberg, took over the first of those properties in 2007 and 2008, and restored a cellar last used in the 1930s. He made wine at Rustenberg in Stellenbosch before that, and co-founded Swartland Independent Producers in 2010. The Curator is its own label, not a declassified version of his estate wines.
Food Pairing
Ten dollars buys you the Tuesday red, so treat it that way. Burgers off the grill with sharp cheddar and charred onion, where the Cabernet's currant and the char meet directly. A weeknight bolognese over rigatoni gives the tannin the fat it wants. Boerewors, or any coarse coriander-spiced sausage, plays straight to the Pinotage's smoky side. Roast chicken thighs with paprika and garlic are not too light for it, since the tannins stay soft enough. Buy six. This is the bottle that lives on the kitchen counter instead of in the cellar, and that is exactly what it was built to do.
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The Coastal Region of South Africa encompasses the majority of the country's renowned wine districts, presenting a diverse array of soils and climates shaped by both the Atlantic and Indian Oceans. This region is home to several distinct areas each with its own unique identity. Stellenbosch, steeped in winemaking history and research, is known for its blends and is a key educational center for viticulture. Paarl, north of Stellenbosch, benefits from the Berg River and produces a wide variety of grapes. The Cape Town district, recently designated, includes wards like Constantia with its cool climate and historic Constantia valley, and the coastal wards of Durbanville and Philadelphia, and the more distant darling, all of which contribute to the region's diverse offerings. Finally, Swartland, traditionally a grain-producing area, has seen a rise in quality wines with its terroir-driven focus, particularly with producers in the Swartland Independent Producers group.
South Africa - Coastal Region
Red Blend is a catch-all for wines built from more than one red grape, a practice as old as winemaking itself and central to many of the world's most celebrated bottles. Blending lets a producer balance what a single variety cannot deliver alone: structure from one grape, perfume from another, flesh and color from a third. Bordeaux, Châteauneuf-du-Pape, Rioja, and the old field blends of Portugal's Douro all fall under this umbrella, as do countless wines from growers who care more about the finished wine than about varietal labeling. Expect enormous range in style, from light and herbal to dense and age-worthy, depending entirely on origin and intent.
