Jancis Robinson, one of the world’s foremost wine writers and commentators, was in the Cape recently to judge for the Trophy Wine Show. We gave her a chance to rest (which she didn’t seem to need) before answering some questions from Tim James.
 

You recently tasted three or four hundred South African wines over three days. The old, but inevitable question: Given that wines are not intended for consumption in this way, but are best ‘judged’ all the leisurely way down a bottle, do show conditions allow one to experience (and judge) a wine in a way that is fair to the wine?

Of course the more wines are judged and commented upon on the basis of big comparative tastings (whether shows or more private tastings by commentators), the more there is a tendency for big, bold wines to deprive more subtle wines of the attention they may deserve. I see it as my personal role, whether as a wine judge or commentator, to do my utmost to sniff out subtlety, balance and potential to develop.

Show conditions of course are very unlike those in which wine should ideally be  enjoyed but it’s difficult to see how else they could be run. There is one show in Sydney where all wines are judged with food. I haven’t taken part myself though some of my friends have. The variables and workload sound even more terrifying.

I also think there is a (regrettable) tendency for more and more newcomers to wine to want and expect the same sort of quick hit from a wine new to them as you are implying some showstealing bottles deliver. (This is particularly true in the United States and some Asian markets.) So perhaps the show system is not quite so out of synch with what some consumers want and what some wine producers are attempting to give them.

If big line-ups are not the ideal medium for assessing wine, can their usefulness be what the Australians often claim it to be – ‘the improvement of the breed’? In which case, should consumers (as opposed to producers) pay much attention to them?

I think the ‘improvement of the breed’ thing worked particularly well in the Australia of the 1980s and much of the 1990s when most of the wines were made by much less sophisticated and cosmopolitan people than the average show judge, who was able to ‘direct’ the industry via the results of these shows. I’m not convinced there is such a gap between South Africa’s wine producers and us judges.

As to whether consumers should pay attention to the results of the Trophy Wine Show, I can personally vouch for the amount of concentration, deliberation, re-tasting and discussion that went into every single assessment. I’d say that the wines we eventually rated highest are those, among those entered, most likely to please the greatest number of consumers. But the caveat, of course, is that I assume that some of South Africa’s most admired wines were not entered because they sell easily enough without such awards – so we don’t know how they would stack up when judged blind alongside the wines that were entered.

So, yes, I think it’s worth any consumer interested in wine paying attention to the results, but they should not regard them as a definitive picture of South African wine quality.

Do you think it important for wine commentators and judges to have a wine ‘aesthetic’ – that is, a fairly clearly defined set of beliefs about what wine should be like, or at least an understanding of their own preferences? Or should they be more neutral, aiming at quasi-scientific objectivity?

I’m not sure any wine judge (as opposed to commentator) should have a set opinion about what makes a fine wine. I think they should let the wine approach them rather than vice versa and then judge the whole. I myself try not to have set ideas about which wine styles are inherently good or bad when judging wine (though I certainly have strong personal preferences for my own drinking).

As one of the world’s most respected and most powerful international wine commentators, you were expected – at the press conference after the judging, for example – to make pronouncements about developments in Cape wines at least largely on the basis of the Show. Was this realistic – to expect you to make generalisations about, say, Cape Shiraz on the basis of blind-tasting 100 of them in a day?

Re the 100 Shirazes, I think it fair to assume they included the lion’s share of South Africa’s best Shirazes, so yes, I think it was for me a good way of taking the current temperature of this wine style. However, I also spent the next day and a half intensively meeting and tasting with 33 of South Africa’s finest winemakers, which was absolutely fascinating and, I felt, gave me some real insights into the Cape wine status quo, or at least status that week. The two experiences were delightfully complementary. I’d say, for example, that the odds were that I would have run the risk of not understanding the relatively subtle wines of Etienne Le Riche without meeting him and tasting a few of his wines together.

Can you summarise the nature of those insights into the Cape wine status quo?

Gosh – that’s too big a question to answer here. I think I had better refer you to the articles that appear on my website [see address at end].

In fact, are you sometimes expected, as one of the world’s most respected, etc, to be impossibly all-knowing? And is it a substantial problem that there are a few people with disproportionate power (with Robert Parker egregiously at the head of the field) to whom both producers and consumers tend to genuflect too willingly?

Yes. And yes, very definitely. I have always thought there are as many opinions on each wine as there are people who have tasted it (you had only to listen to our discussions at the judging to be convinced of that). I also think everyone’s opinion is valid, but non-professionals naturally can’t spend as long as we can investigating their likes and dislikes, so it helps them to latch on to someone whose taste most closely approximates to their own.

I think it exceedingly dangerous that there are so few voices out there which are accorded any weight. As evidence of this I would cite the trend common in Bordeaux in the late 1990s towards big, heavily extracted, alcoholic wines. One of the healthiest developments I have seen recently is the swing back from this style (which is not selling, perhaps not incidentally) to much better-balanced, more ‘natural’ red bordeaux that expresses vineyard more than cellar.

Inevitably, in fact, wine professionals taste/sample vastly more wines than they ever actually drink a few glassfuls of. (I would guess that you actually drink very little South African wine!) And you must also attend numerous functions where you have little choice over the wine served to you. When you can choose, what sort of wines do you particularly enjoy drinking?

Excuse me! I drank (not tasted) two South African wines only last night. My 18-year-old son is trying to learn about wine, so over dinner I showed him 2001 Chardonnays from Shafer in California (a fine Cabernet producer) to contrast with Glen Carlou and what I thought an exceptionally good Chardonnay from Radford Dale. Two, and three, nights before was Groote Post Merlot 2001. My husband was rather snooty about my wanting to finish the bottle!

Impossible to generalise about which wines I like drinking except to say that in very general terms I do especially love Riesling (proper, German Riesling) and Pinot Noir. All I ask is balance. Some wines can disguise an alcohol content of 15 per cent superbly. Others are so high in extract and fruit that you don’t notice exceptional levels of total acidity.

I’m lucky enough to drink very fine wine quite often but that doesn’t stop me enjoying well-made more basic stuff.

Shows and big competitive tastings must be one of the most important ways that, especially, the better or more ambitious New World wines are marketed. Do you think this is having an effect on the character of the world’s wines?

As hinted at earlier, I think comparative tastings and their results have been responsible for jacking up the average colour intensity and alcohol of particularly red wines, but that we are now seeing the start of a definite pendulum swing back away from this phenomenon.

What are some of the important recent, current and upcoming trends and themes in world wine that interest you particularly.

Again, a bit of repetition here. For every action there is, as Newton stated, a reaction. We saw enormously fat, oaky Chardonnays and now they are becoming leaner, sleeker and more digestible. The same thing is happening with reds. The best thing of all is that practically every serious wine producer now understands that vines are far more important than any barrel ever will be.

I think there’s a general and very healthy trend to rely less and less on agrochemicals, which must be a good thing. (Incidentally, I think the wine world has been incredibly lucky to give such a wholesome impression for so long when in fact for years it has relied on some fairly noxious treatments.)

Perhaps the two greatest threats are viruses to the vine population and TCA (generally associated with faulty corks) and TCA-related taint to wine itself. I am very supportive of producers who choose to use screwcaps, though I have been hoping for the last 25 years that someone would invent a rather classier wine-specific closure that was precisely as effective as a cork, without the cork taint threat.

If you could have a defining influence on any of today’s main factors in wine production or consumption, what would you choose to affect?

Variety please. A tendency to sameness is the only malign effect of all this travel undertaken by the world’s wine producers today. I think it would be so dreary if we ended up with nothing but a handful of different varietal wines, all made in the same way.

And if you could influence South African wine producers specifically, would there be anything specific to add to that?

Continuing this theme, I would urge South African (indeed all) wine producers to produce what each vineyard is best at producing rather than making wines specifically to a recipe. Be open to and encourage particular site-specific effects. Label wine with as specific an origin as possible. (Obviously I’m not talking about the big brands here which need to retain flexibility.) But if wine has an extraordinary distinguishing mark it is its ability not only to age but to express a very specific place. Let’s make the most of this deeply satisfying attribute.

• Jancis Robinson MW is the editor of The Oxford Companion to Wine, columnist for London’s Financial Times, a wine educator (notably on television), and the author of numerous books, the most recent being a new edition, with Hugh Johnson, of the World Atlas of Wine. Her website, which includes a free section as well as the subscription-only Purple Pages, can be found at www.jancisrobinson.com.