Payten & Jones Major Kong Syrah 2016


The larger, philosophical questions in life rear their ugly heads as we get older.

Why are we here?

What is the point of it all?

Why does earwax taste so horrible?

But most importantly, how and why do we enjoy a good drink?

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 2014 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.

And so Major Kong has introduced himself.


Dropping a rather large and full Barrel of wine on the world.

-Payten & Jones

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