- Type
- White Still, Dry
- Producer
- Testalonga
- Vintage
- 2019
- Location
- South Africa, WO Swartland
- Grapes
- Chenin Blanc
- Alcohol
- 12
- Sugar
- 2
- Price
- 1150 UAH
- Cellar
- N/A
Chenin Blanc for this wine was planted in 1972!
Producer
Craig & Carla Hawkins, without any doubt, are revolutionizing the South African wine industry. After long years of traveling around the world and making wines in known and established wineries (like Matassa and Niepoort Vinhos S.A.), they decided to settle down in Swartland and start their own winery. The year was 2008, and they produced 2 barrels of macerated Chenin Blanc. It is considered the first macerated wine in the whole of South Africa. They had to fight for the right to export their wines as regulators were against letting these wines out to the market. All those sediments and other traces of low intervention winemaking were quite suspicious back then. But there is nothing to spoil, as Craig and Carla are famous in the wine world.
In the 2015 they bough Bandits Kloof farm in the northern mountains of Swartland. Climate is similar to Sicilian, so they planted Frappato, Macabeo, Carignan, Mataro, Grenache and Garnacha Blanca.
As they say, ‘made from grapes’. And nothing more (except for a tiny bit of sulphites).
Ratings
2022-06-21 - 7.50
Interesting. I looked at this bottle for a long time and finally tasted it. After all, Testalonga and skin contact are a famous pair. I can’t say that it changed my life or anything. It offers careful bouquet with typical notes of herbs, peach tea, and apple with honey. But it also has some interesting notes of iron, mango, and wet cellar. The latter is slightly offsetting but still appelaing at the same time. So overall, it’s good, but for the whole time, it was eluding me like saying - hey, I am for drinking, not for thinking. Which is good… I guess?
Wine #6 on A taste of Chenin Blanc event.
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