2020 Skurfberg – Sadie Family Wines.
From one of South Africa’s most iconic and terroir-driven producers, Eben Sadie, comes a white wine of quiet authority and enduring grace. Skurfberg, a name now synonymous with old-vine Chenin Blanc of profound character, continues to affirm its place among the world’s great white wines. The 2020 vintage—tasted five years after harvest—has evolved into a layered, textural, and mineral-driven expression, adding graceful tertiary elements to its already intricate profile.
This is not just a wine; it’s a study in tension, texture, and time.
About the Winery
Eben Sadie has become a symbol of South African winemaking excellence. Through Sadie Family Wines, he has championed the value of old vines, minimal intervention, and site-specific bottlings that articulate the soul of their origin. His Old Vine Series (Ouwingerdreeks)—of which Skurfberg is a cornerstone—has brought global recognition to lesser-known terroirs across the Cape.
The Skurfberg vineyard, located in the remote Cederberg Mountains, is home to some of the oldest Chenin Blanc vines in the country, planted between 1940 and 1955. These dry-farmed bush vines grow in red iron-rich sandstone soils at high elevation, producing low yields of intensely concentrated fruit with remarkable natural acidity and mineral backbone.
About the Wine
A wine that listens to the mountain, and now speaks with age.
Tasted in May 2025, the 2020 Skurfberg shows the evolution and quiet transformation that only time in bottle can bring. The nose, once purely mineral and citrus-driven in youth, now opens with a deeper array of aromatics: preserved lemon, stone fruit skin, beeswax, crushed chamomile, talcum powder, and a gentle oxidative lift that evokes bruised apple and raw almond. The floral notes remain, but now veer into dried jasmine and hay, with a subtle layer of struck flint and wet stone.
The palate is commanding yet precise. There’s a saline tension beneath the surface, balanced by ripe yellow citrus, peach kernel, guava skin, and a dry herbal grip. The acidity—always a hallmark of this site—remains integrated and driving, extending the finish into lingering notes of lemon oil, lanolin, and white tea.
With time, the wine has gained even more complexity and dimension, moving confidently into its tertiary phase without sacrificing freshness.
The 2020 Vintage in Context
The 2020 growing season on the Cederberg Mountain benefited from moderate weather, with cooler nights and warm, dry days—ideal for preserving acidity and developing concentrated flavors. This led to a compact, focused expression of Chenin Blanc, with great minerality and finely etched acidity.
Now, after five years in bottle, the 2020 Skurfberg has moved from youthful tension into graceful maturity, adding new aromatic and textural dimensions while retaining its distinctive sense of place.
Conclusion
The 2020 Skurfberg by Sadie Family Wines is a wine of rare depth, expressing not only a unique terroir but the wisdom of old vines and the clarity of a singular vision. With five years of bottle aging, it now shows the added benefit of evolution—layered, complex, and texturally rich, yet with a crystalline core intact.
This is South African Chenin at its most soulful. A wine to contemplate, cellar, and celebrate.
We award this wine a 95-point DWA score—an exceptional Chenin Blanc that affirms Eben Sadie’s place among the world’s top white wine producers.
This review is written by our own Niels Aarts. We enjoyed this bottle during our annual team tasting, with the Dutch Wine Apprentice team. Sadie’s wines are imported in the Netherlands by Wijnkooperij de Lange.
Price: ~€85,00
Taste Date: May 2025
Score: 95/100 DWA Score
Website: Eben Sadie