Testalonga Baby Bandito Follow your Dreams Carignan 2021

PERSONAL NOTE: 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. “Follow your Dreams” is a quote made famous by the street artist, Banksy, who says “All art is stolen” so we stole his quote. The photograph was taken by my brother Mark (with permission) whilst on holiday in Vietnam.

NAME OF ESTATE/DOMAINE: TESTALONGA                            

NAME OF VIGNERON: Craig & Carla Hawkins

VINTAGE: 2021

CELLAR LOCATION Bandits Kloof, Eendekuil, Piketberg, Swartland

CLIMATE: Mediterranean

TERROIR: Decomposed Granite, North facing, 220m above sea level, from the Paardeberg.

VITICULTURE: 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.

GRAPE: 100% Carignan

YIELDS: 40hl/ha

VINIFICATION: Hand harvested and 100% whole bunch fermented. The wine does not do carbonic maceration but rather is crushed before going into tank for 12 days of fermentation and then pressed off into two old 3500L Foudre and 500L barrels. The grapes were harvest slightly later compared to previous vintages. No yeast (or other) inoculation or additives apart from a small amount of SO2 shortly before bottling. 100% malolactic fermentation.  A light clarifying filtration was done but the wine was not fined.

TECHNICAL:

Alc            11.9%
TA            5.4g/l
pH            3.34
RS             1.9g/l
VA            0.54g/l

fSO₂         10ppm
tSO₂         20ppm