The Sadie Family
'Columella' Red
Swartland
2022

The producer

The Sadie Family Wines, based in South Africa’s Swartland region, is one of the country’s most revered producers, celebrated for crafting wines that capture the soul of the Cape’s ancient soils. Founded by visionary winemaker Eben Sadie in 1999, the estate has become synonymous with meticulous viticulture and a deep respect for the land. Working with old-vine parcels across the Swartland, Sadie employs traditional, low-intervention methods to create wines of purity, balance, and profound sense of place. Each bottling — from the flagship Columella to the iconic Palladius, reflects the unique character of Swartland’s diverse terroirs, combining energy, and timeless authenticity.

The wine

The Sadie Family’s Columella Red is one of South Africa’s most celebrated wines, hailing from the Swartland region and crafted by renowned winemaker Eben Sadie. Named after the ancient Roman writer on agriculture, the wine embodies a philosophy of harmony between nature and craft. A blend dominated by Syrah with supporting Mediterranean varieties, Columella reflects the rugged beauty and diverse soils of the Swartland. Each vintage is meticulously assembled from old-vine parcels and vinified with minimal intervention to preserve purity and balance. A benchmark for South African red wine, Columella continues to define the region’s potential for world-class refinement.

We choose our wines based on a range of criteria (see how we choose our wines) of which critic scores is just one. Rather than simply highlight the best score to promote a wine, our average critic score is calculated from the scores provided by several respected wine critics, who we follow for specific regions. They do not represent all critic scores and, wherever possible, we try and give more weight to more recent reviews. Where appropriate we consider market-based scores like Global Wine Score or Wine Searcher Average scores.

As a rule, we look to offer wines that achieve a 92/100 average critic score or better and frankly a lot of very good wines simply don’t make the cut. As a high-end provider we want to reflect that positioning in the quality of wines we offer. Such wines are only a tiny fraction of those generally on offer in the market. We believe that an average score is a more conservative and representative approach, but it is still subjective and only offered as a guide to our customers, who will (and should) do their own research. We will add individual critic scores to our website in the future.