The Wine:
This wine is 100% Mourvèdre, naturally fermented in old French oak barrels, and once the wine is dry (usually after about 2 months), it is aged on lees in stainless steel for another year before the wine goes to bottle.

It is a rosé with complexity, texture, and dimension that I find to challenge many of the stigmas attached to pink wines.

However, I don’t even have a vineyard of Mourvèdre. Only a few rows exist in Cape Agulhas, and I put them towards this wine. So my production each year varies between 300 – 800 bottles just depending on how the vintage goes. Given those numbers and the personal nature of the name, it’s a wine that has always been more of a passion project than anything else.

An Unexpected Accolade:
Something important to keep in mind with LOST BOY Wines, is I have a very small operation. I don’t sell through traditional bottle stores, distributors, nothing like that. Nearly every single person that drinks my wine is someone I know personally. They have either come to my little tasting room in Gansbaai, or I have met them at a wine tasting somewhere in the country.

As a winemaker, I think it’s easy to allow for too many opinions to enter your mind and influence your wines and business. But I am in quite a fortunate position where I have access to the most important opinions – the ones of those who actually drink my wines.

So with that, I’ve made it a point for all of these years to not submit my wines to contests, wine critics, etc etc. I only listen to those who drink my wine.

Recently though, I was tricked (by some winemaker friends who felt the strategy above wasn’t best for the growth of my brand) into a tasting with none other than Master of Wine Tim Atkin.

I was quite nervous when this happened and did think up several creative escape strategies to get out of the tasting while I was sitting there at the table with him. But Tim was very kind and we had a great tasting and his insights were amazing. To be honest, it felt just like I was having a glass of wine with a friend by the end of it and not like a tasting at all and I sort of forgot about who I was at the table with for a minute.

Fast forward a few weeks later, upon waking up to hundreds of WhatsApps, I was amazed to discover that my LATIGO Reserve Rosé was awarded Tim Atkin’s Discovery of the Year.

For about 3 days, this was absolutely amazing. People from all over were sending me messages about the wine. I really had no idea the reach and impact Tim has and it was business-altering for me.

Short-lived Excitement:
Then…. I was contacted by an attorney in Cape Town. This gentleman has relatively recently started having a wine made by a very talented winemaker that I know and who was not involved in any of this.

Despite LATIGO being out there for all these years, as soon as it received this accolade, this attorney felt that the name was too close to the name of his label, which I won’t say here, and therefore needs to go.

I will, however, make clear:

• His wine is NOT called LATIGO
• It is NOT spelt the same as LATIGO
• It doesn’t even remotely mean the same thing
• It is not a rosé
• It is not in a flint bottle

Nevertheless, you can probably imagine there isn’t a very large legal department here at LOSTBOY Enterprises, so disputes like this are not something I have any interest in.

Despite being just about to release this new vintage as this whole thing took place, I thought it was better to just rip the bandaid off and start fresh. So for the last 4 weeks, the entire production of LATIGO has been sitting in water bathes as we scrubbed the freshly-applied labels off, one by one.

The New Name:
Now I’ve spoken privately to some friends and mentors about this while I’ve been dealing with it. Many of which seem to be much more offended than I’ve been and their recommended new names have reflected this outrage 😂

While I appreciate their passion, I love a wine with both a sense of place, and a passion and story behind it. And for me, this one started back in California, because that’s where I started.

So from the mountain where these first vineyards are that my winemaking career began, there is a trail system that leads you down to the coast, and to Latigo specifically. This trail system is called Las Flores.

Fragrant, vibrant floral notes are one of the most defining characteristics on this Reserve Rosé, alongside the wild red fruits and interesting herbaceous undertones. So I felt this was more than fitting as the new name for the wine formerly known as LATIGO.

Anyways, I apologise for this long-winded explanation. It’s even longer when I do it over a few glasses of wine 😂

But it’s a label that has meant a lot to me. And it has been a bummer to see it go.

But the wine itself is what really matters, and that isn’t going anywhere. Enjoy LAS FLORES and thanks for reading!