With much relevant experience behind him, Michael Fridjhon looks at what can be expected  from a properly managed wine competition

The debate around the merits and value of wine shows is probably as old as the modern show-judging environment, fuelled as it is by two (often but not always) opposing partisan positions. In the one corner are producers who are uncomfortable about exposing their wine and their marketing pretensions to critical scrutiny; in the other, the community of judges (of which I am one) who believe that a properly managed show environment can produce a reliable result. In the world of wine, there are only two classes with genuinely no interest in the party. One is the consumers confident enough about their own tasting abilities and wealthy enough to buy an endless number of ‘pigs in pokes’. The other is the producers of terroir-based wines with a track record strong enough to determine and defend their membership of the club.

The first group is irrelevant to this discussion since its members cannot have any interest at all in the outcome. The latter segment – producers of terroir-based wines who enjoy an unassailable reputation – is very small: in South Africa there can be no more than half a dozen with a track record going back at least twenty years (the time it takes for wines to advance into the secondary/tertiary stage where terroir lends distinctive features to the mature product). The names that come to mind are Rustenberg, Kanonkop, Meerlust and Hamilton Russell Vineyards – though a case of sorts could be made for a couple of others.

This elite club could proffer the kind of argument advanced by the top Bordeaux châteaux to explain why they do not submit their (often in their youth beautifully made but unexceptional) wines to the international show judging circuit. As James Halliday put it in ‘Wine shows and show wines’ in the 2004 Icons guide: ‘A young [Château] Latour can only be assessed and considered, so Latour would say, in the context of its vintages and – even more importantly – of the history of preceding vintages. Likewise, no one would dream of buying a yearling racehorse without knowing its bloodlines.…’ To advance this argument with credibility you need to prove the pedigree – which means having sufficient vintages produced from that singular site to substantiate your claim that this is indeed a yearling of distinguished and time-proven heritage.

Most of the potential contestants on the South African circuit simply cannot lay claim to that kind of track record. Vergelegen was a dairy farm without a single vine as recently as 1987. Thelema was an orchard at much the same time. Klein Constantia – a property on the cusp of such a claim – was only planted up in the first half of the 1980s, a time frame pretty much paralleled by Buitenverwachting. Boekenhoutskloof – a new enough brand name even in the context of our modern wine industry – sources its fruit from a number of sites. It is doubtful that anyone would seriously attempt to generate a terroir-based case for Rijk’s, Ken Forrester, Du Preez, Havana Hills, and Mulderbosch (to name but the first half dozen on the Fairbairn Capital Trophy Wine Show’s 2004 list of most successful cellars).

So what can a properly managed wine show hope to achieve? To first answer what is meant by ‘a properly managed show’: it is one which – within the constraints of bottle variation – identifies accurately the best wines in the style(s) it explicitly sets out to reward. It should be clear from this definition that different aesthetic criteria may be rewarded in different judging environments – an issue evident in discussions about individual critics (such as Robert Parker) but equally true of a properly directed wine show.

Accordingly you would expect of such a competition a relatively high level of consistency in its laureates. The Trophy Wine Show has recognised Vergelegen as its top producer for three consecutive years. In two of its three years of existence it has awarded the Pinotage trophy to Diemersfontein and the Chardonnay Trophy to a Mulderbosch barrel-fermented. Cederberg has garnered a surprisingly high number of top medals, Bredell’s has twice won a Port trophy. I cite this example partly to trumpet an achievement in which I have an involvement, but also to prove that, notwithstanding significant changes to the composition of the show’s panels over the years, such a result is possible.

What is meant when such a show rewards a particular wine? At best, it says that the youthful example before the judges on the tasting bench had all the attributes you would expect of a young wine destined to emerge as a fine wine in the mould the show has declared it would like to see rewarded. In other words, it was well-made, the fruit in balance with the oak (where relevant), the right intensity, potential complexity, the declared aesthetic style (elegant or blockbuster), length, persistence and promise. Is that a guarantee that you can cellar it for two decades with impunity? To a point, yes. A well-made wine is likely to survive, but will it emerge with the kind of secondary and tertiary characters you would obtain had you laid down a Lafite? That is a bloodline question and it is not properly the business of a show judge in a blind tasting environment. All you can expect from him/her is that all the elements are correct, that this is a well-formed youth. If you know also that it is the scion of a noble house, you have about as much assurance as the world of wine will ever give. Those who are not the custodians of a known terroir and who are diffident about entering such a judging environment, can only doubt the judges or the mettle of their wines.

— Winewriter Michael Fridjhon is chair and part owner of the Fairbairn Capital Trophy Wine Show