Who will shape wine opinion now?
It has been put to me by more than one observer that Wine magazine’s closure is an indictment of the local wine industry specifically and the nation generally, and while I think this is a huge over-reaction, it does bear considering how the critical debate around South African wine is to be facilitated going forward.
To my mind, Wine magazine’s essential reason for being was the monthly category tastings. The outcomes of these were often controversial but since the announcement that the title is shutting down, I have received plenty of inquiries from producers and public alike expressing concern as to how regular ratings are now to be generated. It appears the key reason that the ratings were so appreciated was precisely because they tended to disrupt the status quo and ensure that no producer could trade off past achievement for too long.
Who or what will shape opinion in the aftermath of Wine? The most authoritative institutions are Platter’s, the Old Mutual Trophy Wine Show and Veritas. There are of course a plethora of other competitions and it’s up to you to decide how much credence you place in them.
As for individuals, there’s Michael Fridjhon with his weekly column in Business Day and Neil Pendock with his in The Sunday Times as well as his blog as part of that newspaper’s online offering. Pendock especially tends to cover general industry trends as well as the comings and goings of prominent winelands personalities rather than making specific judgement calls on wine quality.
And then there’s a weird sort of cultural cringe whereby we wait for international critics to deliver their pronouncements, these supposedly carrying much weight despite the fact that these critics necessarily cannot have the same sensitivity for the context in which a particular wine came into being as somebody based locally.
An initiative that seemingly also comes to an end with Wine magazine’s demise is the annual Wine Judging Academy. This was conceived by my late father Harold, Fridjhon and myself over a slap-up dinner at Auberge Michel in Johannesburg in late 2006 and was begun in 2007 with the purpose of identifying new tasting talent.
The Wine Judging Academy took the form of a three-day course with delegates exposed to a range of top wines intended to refine ideas about wine aesthetics. Ignore the somewhat pretentious name and understand that no-one was under any illusions that three days could turn a novice into an expert, this undertaking nevertheless did serve to identify a number of individuals capable of contributing to the ongoing dialogue concerning wine quality and style that must be had if the South African industry is to survive and prosper.
What was particularly useful about the Wine Judging Academy was that not only were credentials established but friendships forged among a group of people working across all sectors of the industry – production, wholesale, retail, hospitality and media – who were always happy to enter robust but good humoured debated whenever a Wine panel convened. I’m not sure quite what happens next but as the saying goes, nature abhors a vacuum.
