The magnificent seven
The magnificent seven
This year's Great White Issue includes a whole bunch of superlative wines.
Over the past two months, the WINE magazine panel has met regularly to work its way through as many current-release white wines as we could assemble (bar Chenin Blanc which is to be reported on February next year). We tasted 150 examples of Chardonnay, 6 of Gewürztraminer, 11 of Riesling, 226 of Sauvignon Blanc, 26 of Semillon, 34 of Viognier and 94 white blends.
A large undertaking but one taken with relish. It is my considered opinion that litre for litre South African white wines offer more excitement than its reds. That's not to say that our whites are better in sheer qualitative terms but rather that they ought to give rise to more enthusiasm among discerning wine drinkers.
As chairman of the various sittings, I was quite open about what outcome I wanted: if we did not generate some 5-Star ratings, then it was not due to any shortcomings of the wines before us, but rather our own collective inadequacies as wine judges.
I am delighted to report that when all was said and done we had seven wines that received the magazine's ultimate accolade, namely Hamilton Russell Vineyards Chardonnay 2008, Mulderbosch Barrel Fermented Chardonnay 2006, Delaire Sauvignon Blanc 2009, Havana Hills Sauvignon Blanc 2009, Graham Beck Pheasants' Run Sauvignon Blanc 2009, Alvi's Drift Premium Selection Chardonnay Viognier 2008 and Miles Mossop Saskia 2008 (turn to p. 108 for the tasting reports).
Let's put this outcome into context. A rating of 5 Stars comes about when a wine achieves an arithmetic average of 18 or more on the 20-point system once the scores of the five individual judges that make up a WINE magazine panel have been added together. For a wine to score at least 18, it must be considered "superlative, top class, a masterpiece". On the 100-point scale, it would have to score 96 or more. Prior to this issue, only 33 wines have ever achieved a rating of 5 Stars and that's since October 1993. Never before have there been so many 5-Star wines in one issue...
There's much debate about who or what shapes the wine market and it is easy for ambitious producers whose wines rate lower than they'd like to dismiss the outcome of blind panel tastings. Such an exercise can only broadly sort good from bad, they argue. Precisely because panels depend on collating the aesthetic preferences of a divergent group, such ratings fail to recognise wines of subtlety and only reward the obvious and least challenging. Whereas both producer and consumer can calibrate against the opinion of the individual critic, the results of panel tasting disguise the aesthetic issues at stake.
It would be perverse to maintain that none of the above is valid but let me put the case for why WINE magazine ratings are worthwhile. The consumer needs a route map through an immense array of wines, and it is better that the task is undertaken, however imperfectly, than not done at all. Then let us accept that reviewing takes expertise, wisdom and judgement, and dispense with the notion that anyone's view is as good as anyone else's.
WINE magazine panels comprise industry professionals, individuals who depend on their wine knowledge for their livelihood and therefore bring insight and rigour to tastings that the layperson cannot necessarily be expected to have. It is here that the averaging effect of the panel, seen by some as a weakness, becomes its strength: if not one, nor two, nor three, nor four but five wine experts think a wine is superlative then you can be pretty sure it has some redeeming merit...
