Hand harvested and 100% Destemmed into open 1500L fermenters. Fermented on the skins for 8 days before being pressed off into a 3300L old oak Foudre and 1 x 1500L barrels. After 4 months the wine was blended and aged in one 10 000L fibreglass tank. No yeast (or other) inoculation or additives apart from a small amount of SO2 shortly before bottling. Ambient fermentation (the juice/ wine is not cooled). 100% malolactic fermentation. A clarifying filtration was done, not fined.

Testalonga was started by husband and wife, Craig and Carla Hawkins, in 2008. After many years of traveling the world making wine (Matassa, Terroir Al Limit, Dirk Niepoort, and many others), they settled in the Swartland region of South Africa and made 2 barrels of a macerated Chenin (the first orange wine made in South Africa!)

In 2015, they purchased land on the Northern mountains of Swartland and they started planting vines in 2018. The farm is called Bandits Kloof (kloof means ‘ravine’ in Afrikaans) and is being planted with Mediterranean (the climate similar to the south of France/Sicily) grape varieties like Grenache, Grenache Blanc, Mourvèdre, Carignan, Frappato, Maccabeu, etc. Currently they have 4 hectares planted and will slowly grow to 9 hectares.

The grapes for the El Bandito and Baby Bandito wines all come from organically, dry-farmed vineyards that they rent or work closely with the owners. It is a total of 14 hectares, 9 planted on granite and the rest on sandstone. These are mostly all old vineyards, the oldest being from 1961 (1972 is the year they were registered).

The winemaking is with minimal manipulation – basically no additives or corrections in the cellar, no fining, natural fermentations, and minimal to no sulphur before bottling.