Natural wine making – the process of making wine with as little wine maker influence as possible. Or as Wikipedia calls it “natural wines are wines that are produced without adding or removing anything during winemaking, although some growers add tiny quantities of sulphites at bottling.” South Africa’s number 1 champion for the natural wine making cause is Craig Hawkins from Lammershoek and who owns the brand Testalonga.
We randomly came across the first vintage of Craig Hawkins’ Testalonga El Bandito in 2010 during a drunken night in Riebeek Kasteel. We were smitten with the 2009 El Bandito but had no idea who made it. Coincidentally we had booked an appointment the following day at Lammershoek and promptly discovered that the Lammershoek wine maker is the same guy who made our favourite wine from the night before.  We tasted the Lammershoek range (with a hangover so bad, if it was a human it would’ve been a morbidly obese guy with a five o clock shadow, a sweaty face, a hairy back and a penchant for dressing in latex) and purchased a car boot full of Lammershoek and  Testalonga wine.
During the visit we discovered that Craig was at the time the first local wine maker to have the balls to ferment white wine (Chenin Blanc) on its skins, and the Testalonga El Bandito was the result. He created the orange wine category in South Africa and eventually even persuaded the powers that be to certify it as a separate category.
A year or so later and the Testalonga range got expanded to not just the El Bandito, but also a wine called Cortez. For some reason I never got around to tasting it. Until tonight that is – we cracked open the latest incarnation of the Cortez – the 2013. My first impression is of the line of minerality and freshness that runs right through the middle of the wine. Matured for 11 months in old 300 litre barrels, my other impression was of the smell you get when you open a bag of sugar. It is an odd description, but it really comes to mind. On the palate that fantastic fruit you expect from Chenin Blanc  (the Cortez is 100% Chenin Blanc from 41 year old vineyards in the Swartland), with tropical fruit, some honey, peach and spice. This wine is not fermented on its skins like its brother, but it is equally interesting.
This is a great way to explore natural wines as a catagory. It’s a fantastic wine. It is different, but worth the experiment. Get your hands on some. It sells for approximately R230.