Testalonga

Craig and Carla Hawkins are, without much exaggeration, rebels of South African wine. Craig's CV reads like a tour of the natural-wine world: stints with Eben Sadie, Tom Lubbe at Matassa, Dirk Niepoort, Stéphane Ogier, Roc d'Anglade, and Dorli Muhr in Carnuntum. He came to Swartland in 2006 to work for Eben Sadie, then later moved to Lammershoek (his father-in-law Paul Kretzel's estate) as head winemaker. Carla has been based in Swartland since 1997.

Testalonga started in 2008 as a side project - two barrels of macerated Chenin Blanc, widely credited as South Africa's first orange wine. The South African Wine & Spirits Board initially refused to let it out of the country: too cloudy, too yeasty, too strange. They figured it out eventually. When Lammershoek was sold to a German consortium, Craig left and the Hawkinses bought the Bandits Kloof farm in the northern Swartland (around the end of 2014). Today they farm and source from dryland bush vines on decomposing granite around the Paardeberg mountain. Annual production hovers around forty thousand bottles across two ranges.

Philosophy: "nothing added, nothing taken away." Native yeasts, no fining, no filtration, minimal sulphur, whole-bunch fermentations, extended skin contact for whites. Part of the Swartland Revolution generation alongside the Sadie Family and Mullineux. Most Testalonga fruit comes from old plantings: 1970s Chenin at the Observatory and Morelig farms; a 1971 half-hectare of Hárslevelű on the Paardeberg that Craig sought out after working with the variety near the Hungarian border in Austria; Mourvèdre from 2001; small plots of Viognier, Colombard, Cinsault, Carignan, Syrah, Tinta Amarela, and a handful of Muscat of Alexandria for the sweet bottling.

The cuvée names are their own genre. The El Bandito range is the flagship tier: Cortez (Chenin from the Observatory), Skin Contact (the historic orange Chenin), Mangaliza (Hárslevelű, named after the Hungarian curly-haired pig), Sweet Cheeks (air-dried Muscat). The Baby Bandito line began in 2015 as the value tier, and every bottling is a Banksy or music or slang reference: Keep On Punching (Chenin), Follow Your Dreams (Carignan), Stay Brave (skin-contact Chenin), Chin Up (Cinsault), Queen of Spades (Tinta Amarela), Monkey Gone to Heaven (Mourvèdre - yes, it's the Pixies song), The Dark Side (Syrah), Hallelujah Chicken Run (Viognier), I Wish I Was a Ninja (Colombard pét-nat).

The labels are Craig's work. He did art at school, and most of the designs start with a photograph a friend or family member has taken, which he then plays with until it becomes a little punk poster. The Baby Bandito face is a piece of street art his brother photographed in Cambodia - a girl with a plaster on her finger - overlaid with slogans Craig liked. Which is about as good a summary of the Testalonga approach as you will find.