Testalonga

Testalonga is Craig and Carla Hawkins' natural wine project in the Swartland. Craig's CV before it is a list of stints through the natural-wine world - with Eben Sadie, Tom Lubbe at Matassa, Dirk Niepoort, Stéphane Ogier, Roc d'Anglade, Antonio Perrino (whose Italian estate, also named Testalonga, gave the project its name), and Dorli Muhr in Carnuntum. He met Sadie around 2005 and spent five years on his team, then moved to Lammershoek as head winemaker - Lammershoek was Carla's family's estate, bought by her father Paul Kretzel in 1995.

Testalonga started in 2008 as a side project - a couple of barrels of skin-macerated Chenin Blanc, widely credited as one of South Africa's earliest modern orange wines. The South African Wine & Spirits Board initially refused to let it out of the country, rejecting it in blind tastings as oxidised; Craig eventually pushed back with lab analysis and got it through. When Lammershoek was sold to a German consortium in late 2014, Craig left. In 2015 the Hawkinses bought the Bandits Kloof farm in Piketberg - slate and sandstone soils, not granite - where they have since planted a small block of vines and will produce their estate wines as those come online. In the meantime, the working vineyards are rented: around eleven hectares of dryland bush vines on decomposing Paardeberg granite, plus a few hectares on Piketberg sandstone. Annual production sits in the tens of thousands of bottles across two ranges.

Philosophy is minimalist - native yeasts, no fining, no filtration, minimal sulphur, whole-bunch fermentations, extended skin contact for whites. Craig has been active in Swartland Independent Producers (SIP) and currently chairs the organisation. Most fruit comes from old plantings: 1970s Chenin at the Observatory farm on Paardeberg granite, a 1971 half-hectare of Hárslevelű on the same hill that Craig sought out after working with the variety near the Hungarian border in Austria, Mourvèdre from 2001, and smaller plots of Viognier, Colombard, Cinsault, Carignan, Syrah, Tinta Amarela (1999), and a handful of Muscat of Alexandria for the sweet bottling.

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