PAYTEN & JONES MAJOR KONG SYRAH 2018

Major Kong is a Syrah that is made like a Pinot Noir. The result is an array of refreshing tart flavours which balances out the soft & fleshy fruit perfectly. On the nose you might be fooled into think you’re about to drink some fine Pinot Noir as it’s so elegant and perfumed, but on the palate it has that Syrah kick.   

Made with delicious fruit, it has red fruits, spice and savoury notes on the nose (and a  unique cloudiness in the glass). It definitely needs to breathe for a while before opening up to show it’s full potential, offering lush red fruit flavours with savoury undertones.

Ready to be enjoyed in its youth, with some room to develop, it has a long and graceful finish.

ABV 13.5%

Here is the wonderful Payten Jones story about the monkey on the label:

"So there’s these Monkeys. In Panama. They swing and stagger through the rainforest looking for fermenting berries. Not just any berry, they have to be not too sour, not too ripe, but just right. We’re convinced they have their own berry version of Goldilocks, and an eyebrow wielding equivalent of James Halliday.

These connoisseur monkeys eat the equivalent of two bottles of wine a day when the ‘vintage’ is on (apparently 2018 was a great year). Armed with this information and in a moment of clarity, Dr Robert Dudley decided to write an interesting thesis titled the ‘Drunken Monkey Hypothesis’. The wild array of flavours and aromas that can be produced in wine and why we enjoy or dislike them are directly related to our evolutionary past. Bitterness was a sign of poison, sulphides (rotten egg) a sign of decay, and sourness was a sign of under ripeness. Not too sour yet not too ripe was a green light.

Extending this line of thought, even Panamanian Howler Monkeys have an inherent ability to taste and appreciate good wine (or anything for that matter). Humans have been indulging for millennia. Payten & Jones have taken 8 years to learn and understand how to make wine that acknowledges these evolutionary principles, but to also keep it as raw, real and interesting as those Panamanian monkey’s wine."