Winemaker Notes
The 2024 vintage, aged on its lees in concrete tanks and old casks, gains exceptional texture and palate weight from this process. While Chenin Blanc provides a strong structure, a small addition of Semillon and Grenache Blanc helps to soften and round out the wine. The 2024 vintage, though smaller, offers concentrated flavors with flinty aromas, honey, orange blossom, and white stone fruit notes.
Professional Ratings
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James Suckling
Deliciously fruity and juicy, showing mango, lemon-curd, pineapple and papaya aromas. It’s medium- to full-bodied, ripe and fleshy.
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Robert Parker's Wine Advocate
These entry-level wines from A. A. Badenhorst Family Wines are just terrific. The well-priced 2024 Swartland Secateurs Chenin Blanc (in a screw-cap bottle with a label that identifies the variety by its synonym "Steen") is exceptionally bright and floral with citrus, white rose and crushed stone. This dry white drinks very easily with good freshness and a playful hint of wild sage to close.
Unquestionably one of the most diverse grape varieties, Chenin Blanc can do it all. It shines in every style from bone dry to unctuously sweet, oaked or unoaked, still or sparkling and even as the base for fortified wines and spirits. Perhaps Chenin Blanc’s greatest asset is its ever-present acidity, maintained even under warm growing conditions. Somm Secret—Landing in South Africa in the mid 1800s, today the country has double the acreage of Chenin Blanc planted compared to France. There is also a new wave of dedicated producers committed to restoring old Chenin vines.
Literally meaning "the black land," Swartland takes its name from the endangered, indigenous "renosterbos" (translating to rhino bush), which used to be plentiful enough to turn the entire landscape a dark color certain during times of year. The district, attracting some of the most adventurous and least interventionist winemakers, excels in robust and full-bodied reds as well as quality fortified wines.