Testalonga, El Bandito, SKIN, Swartland, South Africa

Craig and Carla Hawkins' wines seem to get better with every vintage. They make beautiful, poised, satisfying and utterly lovely wines from low yielding vines mainly growing on granitic soils in Swartland. Often using techniques including whole bunch ferments, extended skin contact and old oak foudres, with just a touch of sulphites at bottling, these are lovely, almost delicate wines that are a million miles from the stereotypical blockbuster South African wines you may be used too.

They are now getting incredibly sought after and we have to be quick on our feet to get an allocation each year.

Chenin from vines over 45 years old, the grapes are destemmed and kept in an open tank on the skins for 8 days where spontaneous fermentation occurs. The wine is then pressed and aged in barrique with wild yeasts and malolactic fermentation follows, bottled unfined and unfiltered.