Not quite utterly fabulous! 11 December 2007

Tim James looks into Michael Olivier’s new wine guide

2008 Crush! 100 South African wines to drink now by Michael Olivier
123 x 155mm paperback; 176 pages; published by Gwynne Conlyn, with Jacana Media; R129

It did occur to me, while splashing through Michael Olivier’s adjectives, that this pleasant little book could well be called Gush! rather than Crush!, as it somewhat obscurely is: wines have  ‘wondrous aromatic’ aromas, are ‘brilliantly fruited’ or just ‘yummy’, and some have ‘a long tail of fabulous and lingering sweetness’. ‘Fabulous’ is a favourite descriptor, and joins with ‘luscious’, ‘superb’, ‘sublime’ and ‘wonderful’ to besprinkle the pages in pinky-mauve, if not quite purple, prose; winemaker Bruce Jack (described as the owner of Flagstone, though he’s now sold it, of course) is ‘puckish’ and ‘enchanting’ and half a dozen other things too, while Hannes Myburgh of Meerlust is ‘devastatingly charming’. And can one do less than murmur one's agreement with the profundity of the statement that 'Wines which are divinely food-friendly have a wonderful mouthfeel and are utterly deeply delicious'?

But, after all, Flagstone is Michael’s Winery of the year, and this is a book about wines to give pleasure without anything like pretension or understanding getting in the way, written by someone not generally thought of as occupying the sterner end of wine criticism. ‘Wine is simply to be enjoyed’ he tells us. ‘It’s not about stars, medals, cups, accolades’, he adds (does anyone actually think it is about those things?) before settling down to tell us about the 100 wines he thinks we should find fabulous, and why we should find them so; for contradiction is one of the curses that blandly populist wine writers manage to accommodate with no visible embarrassment.

The hundred local wines he selects from the 6000+ available are mostly pretty well known, and the range (from fairly cheap to fairly expensive) is plausible and safe, rather than idiosyncratic. They are most attractively presented with a layout that uses colourful bottle-photographs and typography in imaginative and lively fashion and thus keeps at bay any threat of the book seeming too much like a dull list. Despite the dislike of awards, a few are made, if not with quite the fervour accorded amusing and erudite Bruce Jack. White wine of the year is De Wetshof Bateleur, Red is Meerlust Rubicon 2001 (which is going to be hard to find: the accompanying photograph is of the more likely 2003); the ‘Bubbles’ is, of course, a pink one – Simonsig Brut Rosé, and the ‘Sweetie’ is very sweet – Monis Muscadel 2000.

The only bit of general background information in the book is about varieties and the wineries that Michael thinks make them best (some surprises here – poor old Hamilton Russell doesn’t make the cut for either Chardonnay or Pinot Noir, for example), their aroma and flavour profiles, what they’re ‘great’ to eat with, and how to pronounce them – and if you thought Blanc should rhyme with Franc, not according to Michael it doesn't: there is ‘Shenin-Blonk’ and there is ‘Cab-bear-nay Frarnk’. Otherwise it’s fabulous, superb wines all the way. Well, nearly all the way; there’s also a bit about the cork-screwcap debate, a brief flurry about food and wine matching, and notes on competitions and wine shops.

Amongst the latter Michael refers glowingly to just one supermarket by name (it offers ‘the broadest of ranges at quite exceptional prices’). Shouldn’t we have been informed somewhere that this is the supermarket that employs him, I wonder? The fact is not even mentioned by South Africa’s Leading Independent Wine Writer, Neil Pendock, who writes a foreword attacking the things he's been attacking in these words for years but omitting to mention some conflict of interest in the book he is endorsing. And I wonder if Neil questions, as this cynical old anorak does, why Michael sees fit to include a page of eulogy about one particular brand of corkscrew? And just how pleased and surprised will the manufacturers of the Guala composite 'cork' be at the two places where Michael launches into paeans of praise for it? It makes me even wonder if the short section on the Cape Winemakers Guild is the paid advertisement its tone conveys; but perhaps that's just the quality of Michael's prose.

COMMENT

From Piet Enpay:
Great book review on The Gushing Schmooze. One would have thought that Rustenberg could be spelt correctly when it is set in 20pt type and that the author would have by now learnt that Meerlust did not produce the Cape's first Bordeaux blend. There are plenty better things to do with R130.

From Tiny:
The Gusher could also do some research if he doesn't know much about wine, and find out that Chateauneuf du Pape is not a great expression of shiraz, given that it's generally mostly made from grenache. I saw that Mr Neil Pendock is exposing someone else on his blog for making mistakes in a book. Perhaps he should have checked the book he wrote a foreword for - but seeing that his own articles are usually full of mistakes, perhaps we can assume that he did....