South Africa has got plenty to be proud of
It’s the final day of judging at the Old Mutual and the nine judges, along with chairman Michael Fridjohn, Wine magazine editor Cathryn Henderson and a few other privileged souls are slugging it out over who gets awarded the trophies. It has been a pretty average year in terms of number of medals awarded according to veteran judge, Angela Lloyd, but I think there may be a few surprises when the results are announced on 1st June.
It’s been a fascinating week to observe and this has been a great bunch of people to spend time with, in particular, the three overseas judges Debra Meiburg MW, Thierry Desseauve and Neal Martin. In-depth interviews will follow on this site in due course, but it is worth noting that not only have all three been incredibly positive about South African wines, but all have agreed that we, as South African winemakers/wine drinkers/wine commentators need to be a heck of a lot more positive and confident about our own product as well.
The time for whinging, bitching and fighting with other commentators needs to belong to our past and we must now move on. Because, according to these three internationally respected authorities, we are getting a lot more right than either they expected, or that we give ourselves credit for. All of them are going back to their countries with a new-found respect and enthusiasm for South African wines. Sure, not everything they tasted was great, and we certainly have some work still to do, but that work needs to include ourselves, our attitudes and the way we present our industry to the world. In the words of the old Bing Crosby song:
“You’ve got to accentuate the positive,
Eliminate the negative.
Latch on to the affirmative
Don’t mess with Mister In-between.”
I’ll drink to that!
