Community Tasting Notes 2

• tom_m1986 Does not like this wine: 79 points

  September 18, 2020 - deep yellow in colour, medium + aromas of bruised apple, honey, lanolin, slightly tropical.
  On the palate this wine was a real disappointment. If this was blind i would swear this was cider. This wine has very little body, it's so thin on the mid palate, like apple juice with a bitter finish.
  At £28 this is a huge disappointment and will be the only time I pay for a Testalonga wine I'm afraid. I understand the premise, I appreciate the effort and skill in the winemaking but I'm afraid that the end product simply isn't worth the price paid. In a word - Hype.

  Comment

• grapenomad wrote: 81 points

  July 8, 2019 - Great South African wine is quite a recent phenomenon. During the Apartheid, the wine industry was completely dominated by one organization, which controlled everything from production to price, so it is only since the early 1990s that independent wine producers have emerged. With certainty I say that Testalonga is not just one of the best producers of South Africa today, but of the whole New World.
  
  Unfortunately, this 2018 ‘El Bandito’ was a disappointing effort. Hand-harvested Chenin Blanc that spent 8 days on skins. Reductive as fuck, like real textbook reduction (read rotten eggs). The positive trait of it is that it’s refreshing and fruity when the reduction blows off, unlike the Phesant’s Tears. It just doesn’t have any depth and tastes rather water-like, which makes me question the potential of it turning into a grandiose wine like some of their other bottlings (think ‘Cortez’ or ‘The Dark Side’). Will definitely be more approachable next year, but not necessarily more exciting.

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Wine Definition

• Vintage 2018
• Type Orange
• Producer Testalonga
• Varietal Chenin Blanc
• Designation El Bandito Skin Contact
• Vineyard n/a
• Country South Africa
• Region Coastal Region
• SubRegion Swartland
• Appellation n/a

Community Holdings

• Pending Delivery 0 (0%)
• In Cellars 6 (55%)
• Consumed 5 (45%)

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