Region
South Africa › Western Cape › Coastal Region › Swartland
Type
red · still
Grapes
Syrah
Alcohol
12.5%
Volume
750 mL
Tasting Notes(1)
3.7
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The Dark Side is Testalonga's Syrah, and the name winks at the grape's darker register rather than a Star Wars gag. Craig Hawkins picks early and keeps it light: fresh, low in alcohol, with fine powdery tannins, the antithesis of a big brooding Syrah. Whole bunches ferment in open tanks on wild yeasts, macerate eight to ten days, then age in old 500-litre French oak. Nothing added but a touch of sulphur near bottling; unfined, lightly filtered. The fruit is bush-vine Syrah planted in 2001 on Paardeberg granite. Barely 12.5%, and all the better for it.
