Wine

The highest-scoring wine in the white blend category was the 2006 Cape Point Isliedh, an undisputed benchmark in the class. From this perspective no one can fault the panel’s choice, or argue that an unworthy producer had emerged as the victor.

The only problem was the competition regulations included a requirement that the winery still had 250 dozen in stock at the time the results were announced. It transpired — after the awards ceremony had already been held — that Cape Point Vineyards could not comply with this condition. Duncan Savage then elected to stand down ahead of being formally disqualified.

The Diners Club Award is probably the longest-running (and certainly one of the most prestigious) competitions in the industry. The brainchild of the late Peter Devereux, it was the first of many alliances between the world of finance (with its valuable conduit to consumers) and the country’s wine producers.

Much has changed since the early 1980s. The competition is no longer judged in Johannesburg and the minimum stock requirement has been reduced from 430 cases (based on an arcane Cape measure) to the 250 (which still turned out to be too much for Cape Point).

Perhaps even this number needs to be re-assessed: especially when it comes to anything except prerelease reds it is likely that the top producers cannot honestly meet this commitment.

While it does seem reasonable to demand that the initial production volumes are big enough for this not to be an exercise in boutique hand-crafting, the stock-on-hand quantity might have to be reduced down if the accolade is still aimed at the country’s top winemakers.

This is no way exonerates Duncan Savage for taking a chance with his entry. The production volumes of Isliedh are not much bigger than the 250 cases he was supposed to have in stock.

Nine months after the wine’s release (and with a Platter Five Star rating to turbo-charge sales) he had to know that, unless he had set them aside (as winemakers did in the Peter Devereux era and many of his competitors probably did this year), he could never meet the 250 dozen threshold.

Despite this he assured the event organisers — when asked ahead of the awards ceremony — that he could still meet the stock requirement. (This claim is disputed by Sybrand van der Spuy, Cape Point’s owner. His denial seems a little disingenuous — given that Savage apologised for an “honest” mistake.) Savage has only himself to blame for whatever compromise he has brought to his own reputation.

There was a time when the world’s best sportsmen put honour before winning, but that’s an era lost with Ozymandias. Nowadays no one expects a tennis player not to challenge a line judge, or a batsman to walk if he knows — but the umpire doesn’t — that the ball did indeed touch his bat. We’re told that this change is the result of how much more is at stake these days (though winning Wimbledon or the Ashes 50 years ago was presumably as important then as it is now).

It’s a sad reflection of the state of things that competition organisers cannot take producers at their word when it comes to a simple question of fact.

No doubt this explains why the International Wine and Spirits Competition and the Old Mutual Trophy Wine Show send their top medal-winning wines for analysis at an independent laboratory to verify that they are what they claim to be.

Diners Club did the right thing by not tarnishing the 2008 award by giving it to the second- or third-best wine.

However, just as the Sauvignon Blanc scandal of a few years ago tarnished the credibility of South African wine, so Cape Point’s unhappy brush with the truth affects all of the country’s producers. No one among them should feel even a momentary sense of glee.

Michael Fridjhon