FOOL’S GOLD? The value and values of wine shows

In the wake of the inaugural South African Trophy Wine Show, its organiser Michael Fridjhon responds to some challenges as to the usefulness of competitions like this. Questions and dissent from Tim James.

TJ   South Africa already has a number of highly visible wines judging venues – Veritas and other competitions, magazine panel tastings, Platter, etc. They tend to give mutually contradictory results, which doesn’t help the consumer. Why do you think we need yet another range of winners showing off their little round stickers? Are you imparting new and better information or judgements? Are you aiming, in fact, to supplant the prestige of other competitions, especially Veritas?

MF   I don’t think it is useful to prescribe an optimum number of wine competitions or wine shows. The good will survive, and the bad in time will fall by the way. In other words, it is necessary to have competition between competitions, in which, in the end, producers and the public vote with their wallets. I firmly believe that the judging methods applied at the SA Trophy Wine Show produce sound results.

TJ   In fact, it was claimed that your aim was not so much ‘soundness’, but ‘objectively verifiable results’ – what can this mean when it comes to qualitatively judging wine?

MF   Discussion between the judges minimises the risk of a great wine being missed or a faulty wine slipping through. In other words, decisions are taken by small panels focused on quality criteria agreed between them and not by computers simply averaging scores. For the top awards, a full bench of judges must vote. There is something of an averaging effect here but it is minimised because the candidates have already passed through the selection process.

TJ   There are some results of the inaugural Show that will strike many people as implausible: Du Preez Polla’s Red winning a Trophy and scoring so much higher than, for example, Rust en Vrede 1998 or Vergelegen’s top reds; and a Cederberg Cabernet rating higher than Le Bonheur, Le Riche Reserve, Rustenberg Peter Barlow, Neil Ellis Vineyard Selection, etc. It’s not obvious why the Trophy WIne Show’s results should be regarded as superior to those of other competitions. Are you yourself genuinely confident that Polla’s Red is ‘superlative, world class’? And that Vergelegen 1998, 1999 and 2000 are not so, are not even excellent, but are merely ‘good to very good’? Would you defend all the results as ‘sound’ – or wonder if perhaps you and your judges didn’t slip up occasionally, as most judges do, whether hunting alone or in panels?

MF   The interesting thing about wine shows, properly run, is that they operate as wine scouts: they discover wines, often ahead of the experts. The SAA selection ‘discovered’ Thelema and Vergelegen for example. When there are unexpected trophy winners, don’t assume that the fault is with the Show. Before passing judgement, taste the wine and decide for yourself.

Polla’s Red was the only gold medal in the non-Cabernet / Merlot blend class and the trophy jury confirmed its ranking when it was tasted alongside the other gold medals. I looked through all the top silvers in the Cabernet class and am convinced that, based on what was open on the day, we never missed out a gold or potential trophy winner. If wines were not showing well, they might have scored less well than otherwise. In the case of some of the wines you named, the panel sent back the second and even third samples, suspecting some cork taint. This kind of variation is inevitable but does not, I think, detract from the success of the winners.

TJ   Your panels awarded a lot of gold medals – implying many ‘superlative, world class’ wines. Gold is the equivalent, we are told, of five stars in a Wine magazine tasting. Yet all the magazine’s tastings to date have yielded only 11 wines with that rating. The Platter Guide 2002 rewards only 16 wines with five stars. Why are the Show’s standards lower? Is it to encourage more wineries to enter?

MF   The Trophy Wine Show yielded 26 gold medals. This was the judgement of the panellists and represented roughly three percent of the total entry. I think this is a fairly parsimonious result. I don’t think you can attempt a correlation with Platter, Wine magazine, or Veritas. The very fact however that results are arrived at by way of consensus distinguishes this from both Platter and Wine where the score (and the downward averaging effect) has primacy.

It is also interesting that you think that the Show has produced more gold medals because standards are lower. The consensus arrangement does eliminate the downward averaging effect, though it surprises me that it does not cross your mind that perhaps South Africa is now making better wines?

TJ   The most serious problem with competitions is surely that powerful, highly concentrated and flavoured wines tend to shoulder their way into winning positions. When many wines are being tasted, this syndrome is difficult to avoid, and subtler wines are often overlooked. The Australian writer and judge Huon Hooke commented: ‘How often have I seen a group of judges shower a blockbuster wine in glory, then take the remnants out to dinner only to be shocked at how little they enjoyed it.’ In fact many people have criticised particularly the Australian show system for having systematically rewarded ‘bigness’. Given the commercial importance of some shows (the results can significantly affect sales), many commercially ambitious producers now design wines to please judges in the tasting-room rather than to please wine-lovers at the dining-table. By holding yet another high-profile competition are you not pushing SA further down this questionable road?

MF   The outcome of a show like this partly rests on the direction given to it by the chairman. All the panellists were urged to reward subtlety, not clout. The top wines in each category are presented to the chairman for an opinion. This offers something of a check. Finally, all the gold medal wines are reassessed at a completely separate tasting where the trophy winners are selected. The palate fatigue associated with Australian wine shows (200-plus wines per day, etc) has been obviated by the system we used: judges averaged around 100 wines per day, and I, as chairman, was constantly monitoring their silver medal-plus selections. I would like to believe that the outcome reflects the care and balance that has gone into devising this particular show-judging system.

TJ   ‘Show-winning wines’ are associated, by those who recognise the concept, mostly with the New World. The panel of judges you chose could be characterised as heavily biased towards New World tastes and towards ‘technicism’ – two Antipodean winemakers, a SA winemaker known as a modernist, Oz Clarke who is well known for his championing of New World styles; none of the judges is known as a classicist. Given that many would regard SA as best fitting inbetween New and Old World styles, does this bias in your panel not give a questionable push in one direction?

MF   The panels were chosen on the basis of their strengths and competencies. Tony Jordan is the CEO of Domaine Chandon, a European-owned Australian wine business. His speciality is sparkling wine, possibly the most subtle of vinous beverages. He certainly does not represent the blockbuster Australian taste. Oz Clarke is a New World champion, Anthony Rose an acknowledged classicist. Of the local panellists, Richard Kelley is a British Master of Wine, Rodney Easthope is Australian-trained but with a strongly classical palate, etc. You can argue this one whichever way you like. I was hoping to assemble a group which understood and credited wines with high quality ripe fruit flavours, purely transformed in clean cellars, people professional enough not to be seduced by alcohol or sugar. The outcome will speak for itself.

TJ    And are you satisfied with what the outcome says? Is it a coincidence that De Trafford won trophies with a merlot and a cabernet weighing in at close to 15% alcohol, and your ‘Best pinotage’ (Diemersfontein) has 15.5%? Some of the other winners are less hugely alcoholic, I think, but the Polla’s Red has 14% and a residual sugar of three grams per litre, which would raise most non-Australian eyebrows, surely. Are wines like this what you personally would recommend people to accompany a meal with – that is, have your judges produced some winners here that are simply ‘show wines’?

MF   Yes, of course blockbusters do well; the question is whether the judges were seduced by alcohol / sugar or by the quality of the fruit. The fact that, in the end, the trophy for the best winery on show was shared by De Trafford and Vergelegen suggests that the judges found a legitimate place for a range of styles.

Your disapproval of ‘big’ wines is a preference; others love them. I think the real question is: are they well made, well integrated, without visible flaws, evident alcohols, sugars, etc? I think the Trophy Wine Show judges were smart enough to choose great examples involving a variety of styles. Before you condemn their choice, I suggest you taste the wines whose success seems to offend you.

TJ   You must be disappointed that you were unable to give any gold medals for shiraz. Is this perhaps because a number of important names in shiraz seem to be missing from the line-up: no Gilga and Muratie, for example – both Platter five-star wines, no Boekenhoutskloof, Saxenburg or Spice Route; no Coleraine, Bredell, etc? Many of the most exciting producers of shiraz are, in fact, quite small ones – the total local allocation of the Sadie Family wine amounts to less than the number of bottles you require to be available; do you think such small producers were perhaps effectively excluded from participation? Importantly, do you feel happy with the results in the shiraz category?

MF   I think we were all surprised by the absence of a Shiraz gold. It was the second largest class of entry, with 93 examples. Given that the industry has doubled its shiraz plantings in the last few years, I suspect there was a high percentage of wines made from very young vines.

The Shiraz panel had three quite diverse palates, Tony Mossop, Rod Easthope, and Oz Clarke. If any one of these judges had found one wine considered worthy of a gold medal, the matter would have been put to me for arbitration – they didn’t, and they worked at the tasting from about 09h00 that morning until after 19h00 in the evening. In the end I came around and tasted all their top silvers and an extensive selection of the wines in the class. We were all surprised, but nevertheless certain, that there was not a gold medal wine lurking there. Shiraz has become something of a fashion varietal in South Africa. There is a big difference between making a lot more good shiraz than was available ten years ago and producing a gold medal laureate.

TJ    For many small producers, not only of shiraz, the costs involved for the top 100 in giving nearly two cases of their wines for free and then being obliged to make 25 cases available to the organisers at trade price, thus losing the chance of themselves selling the wine at full price from their cellar doors, makes the SATWS quite an expensive proposition, doesn’t it? Quite apart from the R285 entry fee for each wine.

MF   The producer sells his 25 cases of wine at the same trade price he would have obtained – this is cost-neutral to him. He is also free to choose not to participate. The fact that nearly 180 producers entered wines (we had just under 800 entries) should indicate that they considered the SA Trophy Wine Show a potentially worthwhile investment.

Costs of the competition are substantial. Air tickets for international judges whose trips originate outside South Africa cost a great deal, so too the venue, hospitality, management, etc. In other words, basic show costs before any of my or Wine magazine’s overheads more than swamp the entry fees, hence the importance of the sponsorship. Ultimately, I would also like to be paid for my time and input. The profitability of wine shows is ultimately what drives them. The question really is whether the producers get value for their submission fees. Most international shows cost around R1000 per entry because of the overhead structure needed to manage the process and to publicise the results. In South Africa, these costs are traditionally less and wine shows are dependent upon sponsorship. Those who provide expertise are entitled to be paid – this includes the panellists at this Show. The sponsor’s investment has yet to be finalised but a significant percentage of it will be used to market the Show and market the Top 100 wines, thus justifying the industry’s investment by way of its submission fees.

TJ   A spin-off from this competition is to be a book entitled South Africa’s Top 100 Wines. Now, many acknowledged top producers (such as Boekenhoutskloof, Saxenburg, Thelema, JP Bredell, Steenberg, Grangehurst) did not participate in the competition. Some famous wines like Klein Constantia’s Vin de Constance were not entered – perhaps because 25 cases were not available. Is the title not misleading, a bit of wishful thinking? That is, the wines will be the best performers out of those entered in your competition – a rather different matter from being the best in the country, even if one accepts the validity of the results of the competition.

MF   There have been very few wineries of note which did not enter, and they are free to decide whether their absence from the Top 100 list is significant. I think its fair to let the book’s subtitle and general editorial description speak for itself. Clearly, it contains the results of the Trophy Wine Show. I would like to believe that in time all the serious contenders will enter and submit their wines (I say this because Saxenburg entered but then failed to deliver their wines). I sincerely believe that the book will provide a pretty detailed record of the top wines in the industry.