This Week - Adi Badenhorst of AA Badenhorst Family Wines

 

Kalmoesfontein, the Badenhorst family farm in the Swartland is well worth a visit.  It's owned by cousins Adi and Hein Badenhorst and they were at the forefront of developing the Swartland as a wine area.  I remember when it was just wheat and dairy.  The family has a history of wine making as their grandfather was the winemaker at Groot Constantia.

Adi's interest in wine really began when Jean Daneel, then winemaker at Buitenverwachting, let him make his first wine when he was 13.  After working at many farms in South Africa, Europe and the Antipodes, Adi and Hein bought Kalmoesfontein in 2008 and turned it into an ecologically friendly farm and began making wines using traditional methods.  I am sure he will expand on that!

His latest venture is the Saldanha Wine and Spirit Company that I only discovered when my son bought me a fino sherry made by them which is excellent.  I had wondered what had happened to the Monis Solera because its destruction would not only be tragic but almost the demolition of a National Monument.  Having tasted the fino, I wondered if Adi hadn't acquired it.

Last Week

It was a Business Meeting with much discussion on fund raising because we have to look at new ways of doing it, particularly as demands from the various charities we support are ever increasing as government funding for NGO's is whittled away.  A new committee has been established to make recommendations to the club.

Next Week

Fr Joe Pich  will be talking to us on the contrasts of working and living in South Africa, Australia and New Zealand .  He has spent considerable time in all three countries.  It promises to be interesting and entertaining.  When I asked him about South Africa  he said "Ah!  But  here you have freedom."

International - Bermuda

In October, Girl Scouts joined their parents and Rotarians in a beach restoration project along Bailey’s Bay in Hamilton Parish. “They collected over 1,000 pieces of microplastics, several tin cans, paper, large plastics, and rope that were on the beach near the mangroves,” says scout troop leader Cathy Bassett, a longtime educator who is president of the Rotary Club of Hamilton. The girls, ages 7 to 10, are studying the preservation of mangroves in Bermuda, Bassett says. The scouts have also conducted a geographical study of sand to learn what gives Bermuda’s beaches their distinctive pink colour. 

The mangroves, shrubs, and small trees that dot shallow waters along parts of the 75-mile coastline support biodiversity.