It’s clear to me that the shocking collapse of the printed Grape is simply the result of the editors not being sufficiently sussed about what appeals to the great unwashed wine-guzzling public. If they’d followed the motto of one of the new tabloids on sale in the Cape, I reckon we could have made the big time. ‘Sex, scandal, skinner and sport’: well surely the wine industry can provide all of that – yes even sport: strange and eminently reportable things can happen at the Winemakers’ Guild Boules and Golf day, I can assure you.

In fact, perhaps wine competitions should be regarded as sport, rather than the games of chance they usually seem to be. Anyway, the insights they bring never cease to amaze me. Take the awards in the ‘Unusual reds’ category in dear Juliet Cullinan’s ‘Connoisseur’s Award Winners’ (it’s not actually fair to assume from the punctuation that there is only one connoisseur involved – just because Juliet went to Roedean doesn’t mean she’s very good at grammar, or sensible enough to employ someone who can write decent English). Well, Juliet (and/or her connoisseur) finds that Ridgeback’s Cabernet Franc/Merlot fits into this category. Perhaps it’s the merlot component that strikes them as so uncommon, as another ‘unusual red’ is the Vrede en Lust Cara, made from merlot and shiraz – gosh! More encouragement like this and people will be ripping up their mourvèdre and nebbiolo to risk some merlot.

Juliet’s spelling and her attitude to running the standard journalistic checks is itself rather unusual on occasion. One of her judges, her press release tells us, is ‘Paul Bernardie’: I think she might well mean Paul Benadé…. There also seems a little confusion around the scoring system used: gold medals, we’re told, go to wines scoring 17 and over, mere silvers to those scoring, er …, 16 – 17. Nice bit of interpretative latitude there for those getting spot-on 17.

As for other competitions – I must say it was pretty big of Wine mag to include in the results of its recent reader poll that Veritas is substantially more significant to buyers than the Trophy Wine Show in which it has a substantial stake. I’m told that not all the important people concerned were best pleased at the candour thus shown, however. (Of course the actual numbers involved were left obscure; the response to the poll was twice described as overwhelming, but figures to indicate its credibility were noticeably lacking; someone close to the throne did suggest that the overwhelmingness was by comparison with the response last year.)

But less credit to whoever compiled the list of ‘Most successful cellars’ as published in Icons. I must say that in at least one of the public Trophy Show tastings, I had the feeling that Show Chair (I won’t use the sexist ‘chairman’ that they favour’) Michael Fridjhon was distancing himself from the list when he remarked on the arcane methodology behind it.

Try to concentrate on the following illogicalities: Glen Carlou has three medals (including a gold scoring 94 points), yet comes only 14th. Amongst those above it are six wineries each with only one medal, some with lower scores for their wine than Glen Carlou’s; presumably they trump Glen Carlou’s overall better showing simply because their gold was also a trophy. Those six wineries in turn were outranked by two producers whose wines scored less well – but who did have an extra medal).

The most unfair treatment is handed out to poor old Nederburg. By most people’s logic it would have actually come in second place (rather than fourth), as it had seven medal-winners as opposed to the five of Vergelegen and Rijk’s – plus it had a trophy whereas Rijk’s didn’t (and lower down the list, as we saw, a trophy seems to trump mere golds).

Do you follow all that, dears? No, well, it is very confusing, certainly for my grey head. Perhaps there’s some magic element – like Juliet’s 17-pointer qualifying for both gold and silver in her little awards.

Or maybe it was bad enough having to endure the sniggers of having Diemersfontein as the competition’s top winery – the prospect of Nederburg coming second, as justice and normal arithmetic would obviously dictate was just too appalling for the organisers to contemplate. 

I remember my dear husband saying, with about as much bitterness as your average pinotage, that his sex-life in latter years could well have been described as ‘hand-made’.The thought comes back to me when reading many a back label. Local wine marketers love the phrase (varying it ocasionally with ‘hand-crafted’, though as a description of winemaking it’s pretty much as meaningful as the ‘sun-ripened grapes’ that apparently distinguish Fleur du Cap Merlot). The latest PR puff along these lines comes from Distell, announcing a ‘hand-made’ brandy. Having seen those large copper stills used for heating the base wine, I wonder whether having someone turn on an electric switch entitles the product to this pretentious description. Unless Distell’s brandymakers get even more down to handiwork and rub two sticks together to produce the flame. I could think of a hand-crafted signal (well at least two fingers) they should use to the independent PR consultants they are hiring to put out such absurdities. However, thanks to the likes of me and the other ladies at the Widow’s Wingers Society, the brandy industry remains in good stead. Over 40 million litres drunk each year in South Africa – an industry that clearly doesn’t need to live from hand to mouth.

Talking of the excesses of PR-speak, it seems that pink is the new white in some circles, judging by the press release description of Spruitdrift White Muscadel Jerepigo 2004. Apparently it is ‘an attractive light ruby colour’….

Those of you who are as well informed as I am about crucial international developments in wine will have noticed that a bunch of senior wine men in Britain were to strip off in aid of charity – to a strictly females-only audience (which a substantial chunk of our local male winewriters would think distinctly unfair, my husband would have been quick to point out in his surly macho way). Now, I was approached with the suggestion that (given our gender conservatism in the colonies) I might do the same – perhaps at the aforementioned CWG Boules Day. I declined (I’ve been declining for rather too long to change my mind about this, I fear – and the thought of the departed  spinning with mirth in his grave would be disincentive enough), but I deflected the suggestion with the promise to round up some of the local wine personalities for a charity strip – I’m sure the boys would be willing: the definitive showdown between Beyers, André, Marc et al, with finesse and moderation not called for; I’d be pleased to hear of volunteers.

Oh well, on that characteristically charitable note – that’s it. On paper, anyway. They’ve promised to continue publishing me on their bloody website, so I hope we’ll meet in the ether now and then.

Cheers!