MALMESBURY, SOUTH AFRICA — Eben Sadie jumps barefoot into a vat of grapes like a boy on a beach leaping into the surf.
He tramps until the liquid runs purple up to his shins. Jumps out to fix a recalcitrant motor. Scoops fermenting grapes, bucket by bucket, into a basket press. Unloads a truckload of grenache and verdelho grapes with three of his employees, and wheels the load into a cool room. Scurries back to the basket press to extract the juice. Buckets the straw-colored liquid into a steel vat. Siphons off a glass and tastes it thoughtfully, a slow smile spreading across his face.
And that's all before 10 a.m.
Through it all, Sadie, shaggy-haired and apologetically unshaven, a former surfer who got into winemaking almost by accident, is glued to his cellphone, sending trucks here and pickers there. Or he's talking about the poetry of making wine.
It's less a matter of finding the perfect recipe of yeast, oak and tannin than coaxing his grapes to surrender their hidden gifts, like a man trying to tame a shy stray cat.
South African wines, once little known in the U.S. because of the stigma of apartheid, are taking off as connoisseurs trim their purses in search of quality for price: The South African rand's downward spiral has put many decent South African wines in the $10-to-$15 range. Wine columnists are bubbling like flutes of methode champagnoise. Regions like Stellenbosch and Swartland are rolling off retailers' tongues.
It didn't hurt that President Obama reportedly celebrated his November election victory with Graham Beck Non Vintage South African bubbly. (The same label that former South African President Nelson Mandela toasted with at his inauguration in 1994.)
Or that when Wine Spectator magazine recently rated 400 South African wines, a quarter of them were handed marks of at least 90 out of 100. Sadie's high-end Columella is the only South African wine ever to crack Wine Spectator's 95 rating.
But Sadie, 37, shrugs about the fuss as he touches a sandaled foot to the accelerator of his truck. He edges it along a dusty track between the vines on Paardeberg, or Horse Mountain, in Swartland, Western Cape province.
He's a dreamer. If a taster samples his wine and spits, Sadie flinches, offended to see three years' work discarded. He talks about his vines like a shepherd worried about his flock of fluffy animals. And his decision to make expensive wines when other South Africans are pushing a lower price point conjures, briefly, the image of a lamb being led to slaughter.
