Wine of the week: Badenhorst The Curator 2019

This South African white blend is soft (but not sweet), pleasant, and enjoyable

One of the keys to finding wine that offers value, and especially for cheap wine, is finding a quality importer. Which is not always as easy as it seems. Some of the smaller importers that handle the best cheap wine often don’t have national distribution; even when they do, they may be limited in how much wine they import, be it because of logistics or limited supply.

I just finished a freelance piece about this, and will link to it when it runs. Until then, know that Broadbent Selections fits firmly into the value and quality niche. If you see a Broadbent wine, it’s almost always worth buying.

Case in point is Badenhorst’s The Curator ($10, purchased, 12.8%), a white blend from South Africa. As noted, I’ve had to look for cheap wine in places other than the usual suspects, thanks to the the pandemic and the tariff. South Africa has mostly not disappointed, and the Broadbent wines have been especially enjoyable.

The Curator is a blend of chenin blanc (a grape that does well in South Africa), chardonnay, and viognier. It’s pleasantly soft, as chenin can be, and a little oily and with some stone fruit from the viognier. The chardonnay contributes structure and a little tropical fruit (lime?). In this, it’s much more than the sum of its parts, and if it doesn’t flash bright acidity, that’s because it’s not supposed to.

Chill this and drink it on its own, or pair it with sheet pan chicken or fish.

Imported by Broadbent Selections