The Widow’s sour grapes

I find it rather sad that the editorial team of this magazine takes malicious pleasure in what seems to them my personal humiliation. Nonetheless, I am honestly contrite, and feel obliged to do more than the formal, terse little apology tendered elsewhere. When I made such unacceptable use of a nickname for Mr van den Berg, I confess that I also wrote in a way that perhaps his client and apparent business partner and friend, Mr Jürgen Harksen might take amiss. Mr H seems unperturbed – he hasn’t anyway, threatened a half-million rand lawsuit, but I want to apologise to him too, while he’s still in the country.

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You see, I do try to be nice, but no-one ever offers to pay me for it. Some journalists do only say nice things, I’ve noticed. Those who think that there’s a patron saint interceding on behalf of freebie-loving hacks would have been mortified to hear of the very expensive fiasco that took place when any number of them were flown from around the country for a week-end at Sun City for the launch there of the Spier Wine Shop. (No one from Grape was invited, which I think we’ll take as a collective compliment.)

Apparently the thing was a PR disaster, with most of the said hacks in confused and unhappy disarray – worse still, it appears that many of them claim to have been poisoned by the less than haute cuisine. One of the most severely damaged was Advertorial Ace Graham Howe – although another hack who was there suggested that if he’d indulged himself a little less immodestly his sufferings might have been proportionately reduced.

But there are ways of turning these things to one’s advantage, and recovering one’s faith in a divine protector of journalists of a certain type. You don’t write an article exposing the whole shoddy Sun City business, warning your innocent readers about the dangers of food poisoning.... no, you write a very stiff letter to management, listing your sufferings and pointing out what you could say about them publicly, then you list your publication contacts, and wait for ... a suitable response. Meanwhile, just to show you know what side your bread’s buttered on, you write a rather glowing report on the event on the wine.co.za website, to join the promiscuous muddle there of advertorial, editorial, and straight PR.

I’m sure Graham came back from Scotland eager to find out what Sun City had to offer by way of apology or recompense. Scotland? Oh yes, fortunately he recovered in time to take up another freebie, courtesy of Chivas Regal, travelling with Neil Pendock, another of those who keeps a suitcase packed specially for these trips (Portugal with the cork chappies one week, suspect Sun City sushi the next, whisky in authentic surroundings the next... ).

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On the subject of advertorials and that sort of thing, if you set out with the Howe model of journalistic integrity glowing as a beacon before you, you have to learn appropriate circumspection vis-à-vis potential clients. Something that once-promising young writer Christian Eedes has reportedly had a lesson in recently. After his somewhat less than respectful remarks about the Nederburg Fashion Awards in his Gulp! email column for Wine mag, Distell, were understandably upset. Not only are they responsible for a substantial proportion of the parent magazine’s advertising income (and already a little uncertain of value-for-money, from what I hear), it seems their advertising agency had just hired a hack to write Nederburg advertorial. Not our Graham – in fact, none other than naughty Christian, now hauled back into line, no doubt.

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There are always likely to be rumours about the prominent, and in local winemaking terms few are more prominent than dear Beyers and Kanonkop. If and when a succession to the throne happens, it will be an important event. Far be it from me to suggest that abdication is on its way, or even being prepared for, but for the first time there is to be an official Assistant Winemaker – one Abrie Beeslaar, seduced away from Swartland. But I do wonder, at least, what Frikkie, for so many years the right-hand-man and, one always thought, the heir-apparent, thinks about it.

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Why is it that Diners Club always seems to get stick? They dump the old team which most people thought pretty incompetent, and lo-and-behold, people start whingeing some more. No sooner had they announced the panel (‘illustrious’ is, of course, the de rigeur adjective on such occasions), than wine.co.za’s ‘Forum’ started received vitriolic accusations that new organiser Tony Mossop had ‘raided the old age home’, that it was an ‘Old SA’ panel – ‘all from the Cape, bar one, and most on heaven’s side of sixty ...’, etc.

Terribly ageist accusations, of course, against which I must protest – however true. But I do find it sadly significant that the state of our industry is such that no-one complains about the lack of colour variation on these panels – just the lack of youth (and occasionally the lack of skill). Women usually get a bit of a look-in – the DC panel includes a few. I’d thought it was very impressive that the Juliet Cullinan Award team (no, you wouldn’t have heard much about it outside Gauteng – I’m assured it does get noticed there) was an all-female affair. Whereas the Trophy Wine Show, after trawling the world, had only one out of nine – an almost exclusively pale male affair until (perhaps suddenly realising the world they live in? pushed by their sponsor?) they drafted in the SAA-seasoned Yegas Naidoo as an Associate Judge – though I see she’s rather opportunistically listed undifferentiatedly as a judge in the little book that’s been brought out with the Show results.

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I recently came across a description of a Ruby Cabernet from the Robertson area as being ‘pungently green peppery’. It made me wonder if perhaps some lowly assistant winemaker slipped up and put the pyrozenes in the wrong tank? Does anyone know of a bottling of sauvignon blanc which received the blackcurrent essence?

Here’s a toast to honest wine. Cheers!