The Widow's sour grapes

It’s with a little sadness that I’ve observed the pompous self-righteousness (heaven forbid!) surrounding the exposure of columnist Darrel Bristol-Bovey’s small-scale plagiarism. I wish the integrity problems of winewriting were so simple, and so isolated. At least it seems that Darrel generally quoted good stuff – most wine-hacks copy only PR drivel. Some of which is slicker than others. When Graham Beck won an important trophy recently, the press release claimed that this ‘proved inconclusively’ that SA has got what it takes, etc, etc. Presum-ably not what was intended.

Another press release told of ‘captur[ing] the perfect festive celebration with J.C. Le Roux’ (it came in early September, just in time for Christmas). A capital L for ‘le Roux’? And surely they should manage to correctly spell the names of the products they are punting? Here ‘Le Domain’ and ‘La Chason’ were respectively missing an ‘e’ and an ‘n’.

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Talking of inefficiency leads one ineluctably to SAA. Can the problem of magazine lead times excuse the September issue of Sawubona carrying Alan Gerson’s reworking of Simonsig’s press release on Frans Malan’s 50th harvest, wishing him many more? Frans had, sadly, died some three weeks before the in-flight rag had appeared. But certainly it is SAA’s fault that they lack judgement about winewriters to the same degree that they lack it, by all accounts, about wine-service.

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We hacks love to talk about our peers, especially the more successful of them, so do indulge me a little longer in my doubts about the fundamental health of local journalism. I’m told that Graham Howe (who is to the integrity and independence of winewriting approximately what George Bush is to world peace and justice) is wanting more acknowledgement, as well as money and freebies. He’s so convinced of the merits of his assiduity on behalf of his employers, it seems, that he thinks he should be listed as one of the regular contributors to Wine mag. Maybe he should.

On the other hand, when Neil Pendock dipped his burly toes into the murky world of pay-me-and-I’m-yours writing, he was rather horrified when the website put his name to his bits of prose. Of course, expecting wine.co.za to have any comprehension that there might be a difference between advertorial and editorial is ludicrously naive. It’s also naive to not realise that one’s name is often precisely what is being bought – until one gets too well known for selling it, by when no-one should take what you say seriously, anyway.

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Just had a look at the latest (rather handsome) edition of Icons – the book, as it were, of the Trophy Wine Show. Last year the publishers backed down at the last minute from titling the first version ‘SA’s 100 best wines’ – realising that this would have been somewhat hubristic, considering some of the wineries and wines missing. This edition creeps back in that direction, rather cheekily claiming in its subtitle to review ‘the best SA wines’. Presumably partly on the basis of that even cheekier tasting in Wine mag of some of the fancier wines whose producers chose not to enter them. I suppose I should really raise my grey eyebrows at the article in Icons which tries to hector, insult and cajole non-participators into meekly submitting next year. And perhaps warn the organisers that they’ll probably have to do without Vergelegen next year, unless André van Rensburg’s delightful delight in amassing trophies overcomes the estate’s current determination to stand aloof of those scrabbling after awards (and where Vergelegen leads, some others will be sure to follow!).

But no, I’ll just plaintively request, on behalf of all at Grape, that they desist from referring to us as a ‘newsletter’. Just because we don’t have gloss, lots of colour, advertisements and advertorials doesn’t mean that we’re not a magazine too, surely?

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I’ve been noticing recently claims by a few of our finer wineries that (how shall I put it?) stray a little from scrupulous adherence to the facts. I wonder if their PR machines just like the sound of these stories, or do the wineries really believe them? Does Uiterwyk, for example, really think that in 1993 they produced the first ‘Cape Blend’? When Welgemeend Amadé (pinotage, shiraz, grenache) had already been around for more than a decade?

And Rust en Vrede, you’d have thought, were doing quite well enough with their marketing (and their wines) not to need such vigorous peddling of the nonsense that they were the first local producer to make only red wines. If they don’t keep records themselves, they could look in the first (1980) edition of Platter, and see that they had an off-dry chenin in those days, and that there were numerous other producers already going strong with only red wines.

There, dear readers, is an interesting question: who was, in fact, the first Cape producer to make only red wines? If anyone really knows, please tell. I’d offer a prize if Grape or I could afford one....

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A bit late, you might well say, but still, I’m trying to improve myself. With the Australian and New Zealand Wine Industry Journal, which all the earnest vini- and viticulturists assure me is what New Worlders should be reading. Gripping stuff. The first instalment, for example, of a two-part article on ‘Getting the most out of your pH meter’ has left me breathlessly waiting for the second. And if I were growing grapes I am certain I’d find the Hahn Stress Index indispensible. Appa-rently a Stress Index of 0 has ‘tendrils past the tips, vigorous growth’. Which sounds lovely – but with a Stress Index of 5, ‘a significant number of tips are dried up, and the leaves feel hot’. (I know just how nasty it is to have dry hot tips). With this depth of scientificity, no wonder we’re leaving those old Europeans standing! Interestingly, the mag’s advertisements for wood-staves, chips, etc are not all that different from those in Wineland, so I don’t need to bother too much about the intricacies of oak-flavouring, which seem much the same in the Cape as over there.

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The heady fascination of such things as stress indices only reminds me of my own, I fear, and my weariness. I won’t – though I suppose I should – give you my good-night toast in Kumala, the big success story in the UK of the Cape wine industry – or is it of the British wine industry, seeing Brits own the label? It’s now available in its country of (wine) origin, giving us the chance to gain insight into what the British wine-drinker buys, when persuaded by zillions of pounds spent on advertising, and after years of being beaten into submission by Australian wine and its propagandists. With something quite different – cheers!