El Bandito Cortez

Cortez is the pressed white in Testalonga's El Bandito range, not to be confused with 'Skin,' Craig Hawkins' skin-macerated orange Chenin. It comes off a single block of dry-farmed Chenin bush vines planted in 1972 on decomposed Paardeberg granite, farmed organically since 2001. The whole bunches go straight to the press, no skin contact, then ferment on wild yeasts split between old 500-litre French oak and a stainless tank, and rest about a year on the lees. Bottled with next to nothing added: no fining, a light filtration, a whisper of sulphur. The name is a Neil Young song ('Cortez the Killer'), not a clue about the wine. A few hundred cases, dry and 12%.