The Follow Your Dreams Carignan 2025 is the result of significant effort invested into the red wine program, designed to highlight the variety’s pure fruit and the unique structure offered by Paardeberg’s terroir. The grapes are 100% whole-bunch fermented to maximize freshness and complexity. The wine is then aged for 11 months exclusively in a concrete tank (labelled as 100% CONCRETE), a practice that preserves its pure character and ensures the finished wine is vibrant and full of personality

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. 

Craig Hawkins is one of the most influential and certainly the most exciting winemakers of, not only South Africa, but the the New World. Producing wine in the Swartland in South Africa, he has helped to change the image of South African wine.

Craig's Testalonga wines often have such complexity, derived from his winemaking methods, that the authorities don’t know how to deal with it – he is denied export certification on an annual basis due to his wines lacking ‘typicity’. Well from my portfolio he joins Thierry Puzelat, Didier Barral and Francois Cotat in that regard, all brilliant winemakers who refuse to bow to convention in their quest for excellence and authenticity.

• Tweet