PERSONAL NOTE

Baby Bandito is a project we started in 2015. We wanted to work with vineyards that deliver wines that can be drunk young yet still “over deliver” in quality one would expect from our most affordable wine. There was a heavy influence from street artists (the good ones, not just your drunk student defacing someone’s wall, unless it was good) in the labels and the idea of a “series” using different and bright colours. The names of the wines come from expressions that we use as if giving encouragement to a child. “Follow your Dreams” is a quote made famous by the street artist, Banksy, who says “All art is stolen” so we stole his quote. The photograph was taken by my brother Mark (with permission) whilst on holiday in Vietnam.                          

NAME OF VIGNERON: Craig & Carla Hawkins

CELLAR LOCATION: Bandits Kloof, Eendekuil, Piketberg, Swartland

CLIMATE: Mediterranean

TERROIR: Decomposed Granite, North facing, 220m above sea level, from the Paardeberg.

VITICULTURE

Planted in 2001, bush vine (un-trellised), farmed organically. This is a block that is fairly vigorous for the dry soils of the Swartland and produces a good amount of high-quality grapes with very juicy large berries. We try keep as many leaves as possible to shade the block as it can suffer from sunburn.

GRAPE: 100% Carignan

YIELDS: 40hl/ha

VINIFICATION

Hand harvested and 100% whole bunch fermented. The wine does not do carbonic maceration but rather is crushed before going into tank for 8 days of fermentation and then pressed off into two old 3500L Foudre. Fermentation time was the same as in 2018 however in 2018 we had to manage the tannins carefully because of the dry year. In 2019 because it was a much “riper” vintage we needed to be careful to not over extract the excessive colour that Carignan can give you. No yeast (or other) inoculation or additives apart from a small amount of SO2 shortly before bottling. 100% malolactic fermentation.  A light clarifying filtration was done but the wine was not fined.

TECHNICAL:

Alc            12,84%
TA            5g/l
pH            3.54
RS             1.6g/l
VA            0.51g/l

fSO₂         8ppm
tSO₂         19ppm