The Widow’s sour grapes

Do I seem like the kind of person who would defame anybody? Surely not.... A little bit of good-natured gossip here and there perhaps, amid the deep wise thoughts that you’d expect from my grey head. Such as the story about – well, as I’m feeling a little intimidated, let’s call him X, a litigious hack who invited himself to a party. The party being the splendid lunch given each year by one of Stellenbosch’s grander wineries to be nice to a smallish group of wine journalists. This event has a great reputation among the select hacks, and X was clearly miffed at again not being invited. So, showing a thicker skin than he does when he thinks he’s been insulted, he simply phoned up and asked if he could come along. Well – difficult to refuse, of course.

Soon after, however, he asked for the guest list, ostensibly so that he could arrange a lift. (Odd, but vaguely plausible.) Then, a few days before the lunch, came the apology – he couldn’t come after all. He pleaded, I hear, the vital necessity of being in Robertson that day. But we at Grape (being a little paranoid right now) are wondering if X was reacting to his discovery that among the guests would be two of the editorial staff of Grape, a magazine that X is not very pleased with right now.... If so, top marks to him for tact (you see, I do give credit where it’s due, and look for the most honourable interpretations of things)!

By the way, I should point out that the Grape people didn’t have to scrounge their invitations....

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Cheery gossip is one thing, heaven forbid that I should start a scandal like the additives-in-sauvignon-blanc one! So frustrating, of course, when no-one names names – though there’s quite a bit of muttering going on, with the same hot-country producer names tending to recur. (Not only beyond the mountains, mind you, but also a Boland winery that’s done surprisingly well in some competitions – although the main rumour about that one is that very selective bottling is involved.) One of the most-mentioned wineries was, I believe, pretty directly accused of manipulation at a recent meeting of sauvignon producers – to the extent that the head of the (elsewhere lauded) young winemaker was hanging in some shame, and the accusation was met with silence. But nothing, of course, in public.

It’ll be interesting, of course, next harvest, to see if there will be quite as many crisp, confected cool-climate wines coming from some of our warmest areas. I suspect not – and thanks will be owing to whistleblower Michael Fridjhon rather than the authorities.

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I’m a trifle disturbed, however, by the scandal-induced vogue for winemakers to sign affidavits saying that they’ve never used illegal additives.... While I happily accept that maybe even all of them are telling the truth about not adding flavourants, I wonder how many of them have never added some pre-fermentation sugar in a poor year? This is almost certainly the most common illegal additive in the country – and one plausibly defended in private by some of our leading winemakers as unequivocally a respectable thing to do.

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I wonder whether those energetic marketers at Wines of South Africa (who had their time cut out during the sauvignon scandal, apparently to good effect) have been alerted to the public relations possibilities opened up for it during the recent extraordinary trial of German cannibal Armin Meiwes. It emerged in court that he chose to wash down slices of his pal’s thigh (delicately flavoured with garlic and served with deep-fried potato balls and Brussels sprouts) with some South African Cabernet Sauvignon. Frustratingly, we’re not told which producer was involved, but surely this could be the occasion for some useful generic advertising, it strikes me. For wine with a good body look Capewards....

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Winemakers move around so much these days (all loudly proclaiming that great wine is made in vineyards rather than the cellar), that some of the wine awards are getting a little tricky. Earlier this year Distell had great trouble working out who to send to collect Wine mag’s prestigious award to Papkuilsfontein because the reality didn’t quite fit in with their earlier black-empowerment rhetoric. And I wonder as I write this if chenin king Teddy Hall will win the Chenin Challenge for Kanu which he left in latter 2003. I’m sure Kanu will be in two minds about whether they actually want to win, and have Teddy going up for the trophy: I’m told that their parting was very much less amicable than was indicated....

And of course the Diners Club Awards are entirely constructed to fetishise the winemaker at the expense of the poor old neglected viticulturalist. This year caused a few predictable problems – with some actual disputes about who should collect for a Fleur du Cap wine that was in the Top Five – first they invited the current winemaker, then also (following a protest) its actual maker, Karl Lambour, now working at Zevenwacht, then withdrew those invitations and invited the cellarmaster instead! The winning Constantia Uitsig also caused a flurry of confusion in this regard, as it was made at another winery, and the organisers had to scurry around to confirm who should get the award.

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Another award was quite a lark this year. The Absa Top Ten Pinotage lunch is always a rather odd event, in fact (if not quite the last redoubt of publicly saying grace before the meal), and overwhelmingly white male – packed with big beefy men who make pinotage and sleekly-suited other ones who make money, or whatever it is that bankers do. To counteract all this pale testosterone, this year they brought in a TV ‘personality’ – a former Miss SA – who started by telling us she knew zilch about wine, but was actually most competent as well as charming. I was there (disguised as a table decoration), observing it all in wonder, and was particularly delighted with ex-Miss SA when she was making awards to the runner-up winemakers. She was most kind and encouraging, assuring them that perhaps, if they tried really hard, they too might make it into the Top Ten one day. I’m sure that particularly Beyers Truter and Danie Steytler were much heartened.

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Do you realise that I am nearly five years older and wiser that when I started sharing my thoughts with you in this little column? Our fifth anniversary ... and I’m still unpaid. Defamatory I’m not, but foolish in some ways – perhaps.

Cheers.