Talking South African Wine and Old Vineyards with TEGAN PASSALACQUA, Turley & Sandlands

***NB*** We are in the middle of a government enforced lockdown here in South Africa where the sale and movement of wine is, at least for now, forbidden. So to keep ourselves busy we have decided to release a new podcast episode every day during lockdown. Today on the podcast we have Tegan Passalacqua who is based in California and is the director of winemaking at Turley Wine Cellars, a producer specialising in old vine wines, with zinfandel being a particular focus. He is also the owner/winemaker of Sandlands, his own project, which looks to highlight interesting and unique vineyards. My wife, Jeannette, first met Tegan in 2003 when they were both interns at Craggy Range in New Zealand – they have remained friends ever since. I first met Tegan in 2008 when Jeannette and I visited him at Turley in California and was immediately impressed by his passion, knowledge and polite curiosity. I remember fondly a bottle of Turley Hayne Vineyard Zinfandel he gave us on that visit. We drank it within a few hours at dinner that night and I have no regrets. Tegan worked for Eben Sadie in the Swartland for almost the entirety of vintage 2011, and as you will hear, has a real fondness for South Africa. He is an unabashed champion of the New South Africa and her wines – we are lucky to have such a respected voice as Tegan’s acting as an unofficial ambassador in California. It’s all about vineyards for Tegan, and he has a vast well of experience and knowledge upon which to draw. He is a fascinating conversation partner and we have a far-reaching discussion – I truly hope you enjoy listening as much as I did participating. A couple of notes on the podcast: it was recorded on April 5th, we mention that South African wine exports were banned as part of the nation-wide lockdown due to covid19 – thankfully those bans were lifted 2 days later, on the 7th April. When talking about acre to hectare conversion, we get it very wrong (!) – 2.9 hectares is a little over 7 acres. Just a quick note on the quality of the audio – as we are in lockdown at the moment in South Africa and we are relying on the internet to record these podcasts, and it doesn’t always behave. We have done what we can to make it listenable as possible. Tegan and I talk over each other a few times in this podcast, mostly due to the delay, but sometimes I just can’t wait to interrupt. I give you Tegan Passalacqua.

There are no comments yet.

Please log in to write the first comment.