New vintage 2021 wines from Craig and Carla Hawkins
Our last big release for the year: the new 2021 TESTALONGA wines from Craig and Carla Hawkins are ready to hit glasses…
The Hawkins
Craig and Carla seek purity, precision and brightness in their wines and only work with vineyards that can produce high-quality grapes (with relatively low pH) ensuring that there is minimal need for intervention in the cellar.
A herbicide- and pesticide-free approach in the vineyard is essential to their goals. They work with cover crops rather than chemical fertilisers in the winter to ensure moisture retention and general soil health in the dry Swartland climate. Expressing vineyard is key, so all the wines are a single variety from a single site.
Craig and Carla Hawkins
The Hawkins purchased land in northern Swartland in 2016 to establish a home and vineyards near the Piekenierskloof Pass and named it Bandits Kloof.
In 2021 they made the first wine (a Grenache Blanc, probably not for commercial release) from grapes grown on this farm. I was lucky enough to taste it on a recent visit , and while it is from young vineyards, it is a hugely exciting development.
The Wines
The focus at TESTALONGA is on single vineyard, single varietal wines.
This year sees the release of a full range of Vintage 2021 El Bandito and Baby Bandito wines. We also have a small amount of the 2019 Skin available – direct from the TESTALONGA cellars.
As always some of the wines are only available in minute quantities.
TESTALONGA El Bandito ‘I Wish I Was A Ninja’ 2021
Colombard Pet Nat
Note from Craig: “We are extremely happy with this wine, as it is quickly becoming one of our mainstay wines. The good balance of acid, sugar and bubbles is now a consistent quality. The name came about whilst we were bottling the wine in harvest and we got onto the topic of Ninjas. The photo was taken by me in the pool of good friend Paul Jordaan, during one of many Swartland braais. I knew then that the photo would be my label as I think it captures the essence of what I want the people to feel like when they drink this wine.”
TESTALONGA El Bandito ‘I Am The Ninja’ 2021
Chenin Blanc Pet Nat
Note from Craig: “This is the latest addition to our portfolio. We love Methode Ancestral wines and the texture they bring. We wanted this wine to be drier than the “I wish I was a Ninja” as we feel Chenin has more depth when it is drier. The photo was taken by our friend Martin Shambrock in London of his neighbour’s dog “Layla”. We love the photo and think it suits this wine perfectly, it serious but playful at the same time.“
TESTALONGA Baby Bandito ‘Keep On Punching’ 2021
Chenin Blanc
Note from Craig: “Baby Bandito is a project we started in 2015. We wanted to work with vineyards that deliver wines that can be drunk young yet still over deliver in quality one would expect from our most affordable wine. There was a heavy influence from street artists (the good ones, not just your drunk student defacing someone’s wall, unless it was good) in the labels and the idea of a series using different and bright colours. The names of the wines come from expressions that we use as if giving encouragement to a child. “Keep on Punching” is an expression my good friend and hockey mate, Prof Lyal White, used to always say when the going got tough: “Keep on punching, the head will fall”.”
TESTALONGA Baby Bandito ‘Stay Brave’ 2021
Chenin Blanc – Skin Macerated
Hand harvested and 100% destemmed into open 1500L fermenters. Fermented on the skins for 8 days before being pressed off into a 3300L old oak Foudre and 1 x 1500L barrels. After 4 months the wine was blended and aged in one 10 000L fibreglass tank. No yeast (or other) inoculation or additives apart from a small amount of SO2 shortly before bottling. Ambient fermentation (the juice/wine is not cooled). 100% malolactic fermentation.
TESTALONGA Baby Bandito ‘Chin Up’ 2021
Cinsaut
Planted in 1981, bush vine (un-trellised and dryland), farmed organically. This is a 3ha block on the farm of Rick Mcgrindle. It yields very large delicate grapes with thin skins of a pale complexion. The vineyard struggled the most of all our vineyards during the water stressed vintages of 2016-2018 and has taken some time to recover. 2021 was a good step in the right direction for this vineyard with better yield compared to the previous 3 vintages.
TESTALONGA Baby Bandito ‘Follow Your Dreams’ 2021
Carignan
Planted in 2001, bush vine (un-trellised), farmed organically. This is a block that is fairly vigorous for the dry soils of the Swartland and produces a good number of high-quality grapes with very juicy large berries. We try keep as many leaves as possible to shade the block as it can suffer from sunburn. 2021 was a great vintage for this block, as we achieved great levels of acidity and higher alcohols combined with a much lower pH than normal, again a result of good rains and continued improvements in the vineyard.
TESTALONGA El Bandito ‘Skin’ 2021
Chenin Blanc – Skin Macerated
Note from Craig: “The ‘Skin’ is our proudest wine being the first wine we bottled and made in 2008. The wine has come a long way and each year provides us with new flavours. We have toned down on the extraction and have now stopped experimenting as much as we used to. We have found our sweet spot that we enjoy for Skin Macerated whites and enjoy the balance we get from these flavours. We have reduced the length of time we leave the wines on the skin as the goal here is to find elegance and focus within this particular style which we love.”
TESTALONGA El Bandito ‘Cortez’ 2021
Chenin Blanc
Note from Craig: “We change the label every year to best suit the feeling I think the wine is giving. The photo on the label was taken by Craig in Tokyo, Japan in 2015 of some graffiti on a wall at about 3am. The image was always in Craigs “future label” folder, and we think it resonates perfectly with the Cortez wine this year. Mysterious but beautiful at the same time. There is no Japanese meaning for the graffiti, so people can feel free to find their own meaning for it.“
TESTALONGA El Bandito ‘Lords Of Dogtown’ 2021
Chenin Blanc
Note from Craig: “Our farm, Bandits Kloof, is now a blank canvas and can be quite a demanding place at times. It’s definitely a challenge in a positive way but is a bit “rough” at the moment. We have friendly nicknamed it “Dog town” as the animals (baboons, donkeys, cattle, dogs) are or seem to want to be in charge. The photo was taken by Carla on one of our walks, and the donkeys and cattle all seemed to be posing for the camera as if it was a photo shoot. The owner of the vineyard Carl Malherbe has 2h a of vineyard which when he brought the farm was abandoned, we worked together and are in the process of getting the 2 blocks back into production, Carl being a cattle auctioneer always jokingly asks when I’m going to put an Nguni on the label, so the photo just fitted. This wine is exclusively for Japan and RSA as only 300 bottles were made.“
TESTALONGA El Bandito ‘Mangaliza’ 2021
Harslevelu
Note from Craig: “The wine is borne from my experiences in working close the Hungarian border in Austria. Here I came into contact with the grape Harslevelü, which is beautifully fragrant and has a great natural oily texture together with decent acidities. I came back to South Africa and work with a tiny 0.5 ha vineyard, (which is next to the Sweet Cheeks and Cortez vineyard). Whilst in Hungary I also discovered the Hungarian “Sheep Pig” locally called Mangalitsa, I like pigs and particularly pigs that look like sheep, so I called the wine Mangaliza in homage to the sheep pig. The photo was taken by myself of a field mouse which I rescued from my dogs, it lived to fight another day.“
TESTALONGA El Bandito ‘Sweet Cheeks’ 2021
Hanepoot – Skin Macerated
Note from Craig: “The name comes from the children who every year love to pick at the sweet berries and eat them, hence “sweet cheeks”. Probably the most fragrant wine we make. Hanepoot (Muscat Alexandrie) is actually a table grape and meant for eating but we did an experiment in 2013 with skin contact to try and extract the flavour and it has made one of our most refreshing wines to drink.“
TESTALONGA El Bandito ‘The Dark Side’ 2021
Syrah
Note from Craig: “The Dark Side is probably our simplest label, but we find it fitting to the grape Syrah, which definitely has a dark side, in a good way. Syrah has always been a challenging grape for us as we have high expectations and it is very important to find the right soil and block to suit the wine that we want to make.“
TESTALONGA El Bandito ‘Queen Of Spades’ 2021
Tinta Amarela
Note from Craig: “We came across this vineyard (0.1ha) through good friend Rick Mcgrindle, a farmer from Abbotsdale/Paardeberg region. Thought to be Tempranillo when planted but turning out to be Tinta Amarela, which is a grape I personally love from my experiences of working in Portugal. The Label is a photo taken by one of our friends Bryan short brother (Kevin Short) during his time spent at Burning Man in the USA. I adapted the photo to portray a perception of a “Love/Hate” relationship between the Queen of Spades and the Queen of Hearts.“
TESTALONGA El Bandito ‘Monkey Gone To Heaven’ 2021
Mourvedre
Note from Craig: “The photo was taken by Kevin Short at The Burning Man festival in USA. I think this photo portrays the wine perfectly. Mourvedre can be a very tannic/gritty wine and the photo of Kevin’s wife on her bicycle in the desert is a great analogy for the wine and its fine tannins. I enjoy the Pixies and their song “Monkey gone to Heaven” and I think works well with this photo. The main theme of the song is environmentalism, and the song deals with man’s “confusion of man’s place in the universe”, which is perfect for this photo, its location and the people behind it.“
TESTALONGA Vintage 2021
New vintage 2021 wines from Craig and Carla Hawkins
Our last big release for the year: the new 2021 TESTALONGA wines from Craig and Carla Hawkins are ready to hit glasses…
The Hawkins
Craig and Carla seek purity, precision and brightness in their wines and only work with vineyards that can produce high-quality grapes (with relatively low pH) ensuring that there is minimal need for intervention in the cellar.
A herbicide- and pesticide-free approach in the vineyard is essential to their goals. They work with cover crops rather than chemical fertilisers in the winter to ensure moisture retention and general soil health in the dry Swartland climate. Expressing vineyard is key, so all the wines are a single variety from a single site.
Craig and Carla Hawkins
The Hawkins purchased land in northern Swartland in 2016 to establish a home and vineyards near the Piekenierskloof Pass and named it Bandits Kloof.
In 2021 they made the first wine (a Grenache Blanc, probably not for commercial release) from grapes grown on this farm. I was lucky enough to taste it on a recent visit , and while it is from young vineyards, it is a hugely exciting development.
The Wines
The focus at TESTALONGA is on single vineyard, single varietal wines.
This year sees the release of a full range of Vintage 2021 El Bandito and Baby Bandito wines. We also have a small amount of the 2019 Skin available – direct from the TESTALONGA cellars.
As always some of the wines are only available in minute quantities.
TESTALONGA El Bandito ‘I Wish I Was A Ninja’ 2021
Colombard Pet Nat
Note from Craig: “We are extremely happy with this wine, as it is quickly becoming one of our mainstay wines. The good balance of acid, sugar and bubbles is now a consistent quality. The name came about whilst we were bottling the wine in harvest and we got onto the topic of Ninjas. The photo was taken by me in the pool of good friend Paul Jordaan, during one of many Swartland braais. I knew then that the photo would be my label as I think it captures the essence of what I want the people to feel like when they drink this wine.”
TESTALONGA El Bandito ‘I Am The Ninja’ 2021
Chenin Blanc Pet Nat
Note from Craig: “This is the latest addition to our portfolio. We love Methode Ancestral wines and the texture they bring. We wanted this wine to be drier than the “I wish I was a Ninja” as we feel Chenin has more depth when it is drier. The photo was taken by our friend Martin Shambrock in London of his neighbour’s dog “Layla”. We love the photo and think it suits this wine perfectly, it serious but playful at the same time.“
TESTALONGA Baby Bandito ‘Keep On Punching’ 2021
Chenin Blanc
Note from Craig: “Baby Bandito is a project we started in 2015. We wanted to work with vineyards that deliver wines that can be drunk young yet still over deliver in quality one would expect from our most affordable wine. There was a heavy influence from street artists (the good ones, not just your drunk student defacing someone’s wall, unless it was good) in the labels and the idea of a series using different and bright colours. The names of the wines come from expressions that we use as if giving encouragement to a child. “Keep on Punching” is an expression my good friend and hockey mate, Prof Lyal White, used to always say when the going got tough: “Keep on punching, the head will fall”.”
TESTALONGA Baby Bandito ‘Stay Brave’ 2021
Chenin Blanc – Skin Macerated
Hand harvested and 100% destemmed into open 1500L fermenters. Fermented on the skins for 8 days before being pressed off into a 3300L old oak Foudre and 1 x 1500L barrels. After 4 months the wine was blended and aged in one 10 000L fibreglass tank. No yeast (or other) inoculation or additives apart from a small amount of SO2 shortly before bottling. Ambient fermentation (the juice/wine is not cooled). 100% malolactic fermentation.
TESTALONGA Baby Bandito ‘Chin Up’ 2021
Cinsaut
Planted in 1981, bush vine (un-trellised and dryland), farmed organically. This is a 3ha block on the farm of Rick Mcgrindle. It yields very large delicate grapes with thin skins of a pale complexion. The vineyard struggled the most of all our vineyards during the water stressed vintages of 2016-2018 and has taken some time to recover. 2021 was a good step in the right direction for this vineyard with better yield compared to the previous 3 vintages.
TESTALONGA Baby Bandito ‘Follow Your Dreams’ 2021
Carignan
Planted in 2001, bush vine (un-trellised), farmed organically. This is a block that is fairly vigorous for the dry soils of the Swartland and produces a good number of high-quality grapes with very juicy large berries. We try keep as many leaves as possible to shade the block as it can suffer from sunburn. 2021 was a great vintage for this block, as we achieved great levels of acidity and higher alcohols combined with a much lower pH than normal, again a result of good rains and continued improvements in the vineyard.
TESTALONGA El Bandito ‘Skin’ 2021
Chenin Blanc – Skin Macerated
Note from Craig: “The ‘Skin’ is our proudest wine being the first wine we bottled and made in 2008. The wine has come a long way and each year provides us with new flavours. We have toned down on the extraction and have now stopped experimenting as much as we used to. We have found our sweet spot that we enjoy for Skin Macerated whites and enjoy the balance we get from these flavours. We have reduced the length of time we leave the wines on the skin as the goal here is to find elegance and focus within this particular style which we love.”
TESTALONGA El Bandito ‘Cortez’ 2021
Chenin Blanc
Note from Craig: “We change the label every year to best suit the feeling I think the wine is giving. The photo on the label was taken by Craig in Tokyo, Japan in 2015 of some graffiti on a wall at about 3am. The image was always in Craigs “future label” folder, and we think it resonates perfectly with the Cortez wine this year. Mysterious but beautiful at the same time. There is no Japanese meaning for the graffiti, so people can feel free to find their own meaning for it.“
TESTALONGA El Bandito ‘Lords Of Dogtown’ 2021
Chenin Blanc
Note from Craig: “Our farm, Bandits Kloof, is now a blank canvas and can be quite a demanding place at times. It’s definitely a challenge in a positive way but is a bit “rough” at the moment. We have friendly nicknamed it “Dog town” as the animals (baboons, donkeys, cattle, dogs) are or seem to want to be in charge. The photo was taken by Carla on one of our walks, and the donkeys and cattle all seemed to be posing for the camera as if it was a photo shoot. The owner of the vineyard Carl Malherbe has 2h a of vineyard which when he brought the farm was abandoned, we worked together and are in the process of getting the 2 blocks back into production, Carl being a cattle auctioneer always jokingly asks when I’m going to put an Nguni on the label, so the photo just fitted. This wine is exclusively for Japan and RSA as only 300 bottles were made.“
TESTALONGA El Bandito ‘Mangaliza’ 2021
Harslevelu
Note from Craig: “The wine is borne from my experiences in working close the Hungarian border in Austria. Here I came into contact with the grape Harslevelü, which is beautifully fragrant and has a great natural oily texture together with decent acidities. I came back to South Africa and work with a tiny 0.5 ha vineyard, (which is next to the Sweet Cheeks and Cortez vineyard). Whilst in Hungary I also discovered the Hungarian “Sheep Pig” locally called Mangalitsa, I like pigs and particularly pigs that look like sheep, so I called the wine Mangaliza in homage to the sheep pig. The photo was taken by myself of a field mouse which I rescued from my dogs, it lived to fight another day.“
TESTALONGA El Bandito ‘Sweet Cheeks’ 2021
Hanepoot – Skin Macerated
Note from Craig: “The name comes from the children who every year love to pick at the sweet berries and eat them, hence “sweet cheeks”. Probably the most fragrant wine we make. Hanepoot (Muscat Alexandrie) is actually a table grape and meant for eating but we did an experiment in 2013 with skin contact to try and extract the flavour and it has made one of our most refreshing wines to drink.“
TESTALONGA El Bandito ‘The Dark Side’ 2021
Syrah
Note from Craig: “The Dark Side is probably our simplest label, but we find it fitting to the grape Syrah, which definitely has a dark side, in a good way. Syrah has always been a challenging grape for us as we have high expectations and it is very important to find the right soil and block to suit the wine that we want to make.“
TESTALONGA El Bandito ‘Queen Of Spades’ 2021
Tinta Amarela
Note from Craig: “We came across this vineyard (0.1ha) through good friend Rick Mcgrindle, a farmer from Abbotsdale/Paardeberg region. Thought to be Tempranillo when planted but turning out to be Tinta Amarela, which is a grape I personally love from my experiences of working in Portugal. The Label is a photo taken by one of our friends Bryan short brother (Kevin Short) during his time spent at Burning Man in the USA. I adapted the photo to portray a perception of a “Love/Hate” relationship between the Queen of Spades and the Queen of Hearts.“
TESTALONGA El Bandito ‘Monkey Gone To Heaven’ 2021
Mourvedre
Note from Craig: “The photo was taken by Kevin Short at The Burning Man festival in USA. I think this photo portrays the wine perfectly. Mourvedre can be a very tannic/gritty wine and the photo of Kevin’s wife on her bicycle in the desert is a great analogy for the wine and its fine tannins. I enjoy the Pixies and their song “Monkey gone to Heaven” and I think works well with this photo. The main theme of the song is environmentalism, and the song deals with man’s “confusion of man’s place in the universe”, which is perfect for this photo, its location and the people behind it.“
Please contact david@exanimo.co.za if you have any queries.