The evolution of Testalonga over the past fifteen years has been a story of maturity. As Craig and Carla have become wiser stewards of their land, their wines, too, have become more confident, more serious conduits of their origins. While the ethos is still the same (“a good wine doesn’t need all the props to be held up”), the approach has shifted to tell a truer story of place. “For us,” says Craig, “it’s about the truth and finding the best way to get there.”  Everything they do in the vineyard and cellar is in service of honestly conveying site. In practice, this means taking a firm stance on organic farming, which Craig believes is paramount to the authenticity of his wines, and it means being a little less dogmatic in the cellar. From 2018 onwards, they’ve experimented with filtering their wines, and they won’t shy away from adding sulfur. After all, if the wine can’t last six months in bottle to tell the story, what good is the story itself?

In line with telling a truer story of place, Craig and Carla purchased their home estate in 2015, a hamlet at the northern edge of the Swartland where it touches Olifantsriver and Cederberg. Whereas they used to push boundaries with their winemaking, these days it’s more about the viticulture. In 2018, they planted a host of varieties fit for their warm, dry, Mediterranean climate, like Marsanne, Roussanne, Grenache, Carignan, and Macabeo (Viura). While they wait for these vines to mature, they continue to source from their original growers whose farms span from the granitic soils of the Paardeberg to the limestone soils of the West Coast.

Their line-up includes the approachable Baby Bandito and more serious, structured El Bandito series. The Baby Bandito wines are each named with phrases one might say to a kid: ‘Keep on Punching’ (Chenin Blanc); ‘Stay Brave’ (skin-fermented Chenin); ‘Chin Up’ (Cinsault), and ‘Follow Your Dreams’ (Carignan). The El Bandito label is reserved for the top vineyards of bought-in fruit. The list has grown over the years to include varieties like Muscat, Tinta Amarela, and even Hárslevelű. Vineyard and cellar practices remove the human imprint to focus on purity of variety and site: organic farming, only irrigating young vines, manual harvest, spontaneous fermentation, and very reasonable sulfur additions. Everything they do is based on a taste – and intuition. “I pick on taste. I press on taste. I blend on taste,” says Craig. “It’s about a feeling in the wine that I’m looking for.”

In the fifteen or so years that Craig and Carla have been making Testalonga wines, they’ve played an integral role in developing an innovative wine culture in South Africa. Rather than sticking to blind dogma, they have stepped outside of their egos to allow for adaptation, for an expanded identity, for a truer story.  “There are some producers – not very many –,” writes wine critic Tim James, “whose sudden absence would leave an irreparable hole in the fabric of the South African wine industry, so unique and valuable are they. Craig and Carla Hawkins have over the last decade or so built Testalonga into such a producer, one that brings real integrity into the mix too.”