Buying by price and reputation 19 October 2006

Wine mag’s two annual guides offer something useful, says Angela Lloyd

2007 Pocket Guide to Wines & Cellars of South Africa (R59.95)
2007 Best Value Wine Guide (R49.95)

Both published by Wine magazine
Widely available in South Africa, or can be ordered online at the Wine website

We are all familiar with those blind tastings that throw up the unlikely winner and the many guffaws that follow from others not involved. The result may be a one-off, in which case the winery in question fades from memory and slides into the rest of the morass of mediocrity, or it could herald the start of a long and illustrious history of winning ratings and minds.

Consistency is all and that is what Wine magazine aims to highlight with the 2007 edition of its Pocket Guide to Wines & Cellars of South Africa. The results listed are drawn from the magazine's own tastings held over the period July 2001 to June 2006 and arrived at by a ranking system explained in the guide. The magazine's panel is made up of a core of regular tasters, another element of consistency which should give the reader some confidence in the chosen top performers.

No time is lost in getting to the nub of the matter: the opening chapter ‘Getting it right every time' highlights six of the most consistently performing red wines over the past five years. That these include some of South Africa's most costly and rare offerings, such as Boekenhoutskloof Syrah and Hamilton Russell Pinot Noir, should not leave readers feeling too despondent – turn the page and there follows lists by variety of very many more wines covering all styles, which have performed well over at least three vintages. Again, these feature many of the usual suspects, though both availability and price are more consumer-friendly.

There are few surprises too among the best red and best white wine cellars, apart possibly from the inclusion of Avontuur among the latter.

New chapters this year include bargains under R50 for red and R40 for white discovered over the past year and top wines in each region listed against the regional maps.

All this plus A to Z winery details, wine industry statistics and results from other competitions is crammed into 380 pages of a breast-pocket-sized book whose text will test not only the visually challenged.

If a ceiling price of R50 is your sole selection parameter both for the wines and the guide itself, then the 2007 Best Value Wine Guide is the publication for you. Both size and format are easier on the eye than the above guide but then this doesn't pretend to be comprehensive, partly as cellars have to pay to enter. It says something for the mass of wines looking for buyers at this price level that just under 1000 (about one-sixth of the current number on the market)  were submitted. A panel headed by Dave Hughes took six days to whittle down the initial entry to 330 deemed worthy of a spot in this guide.

Apart from a quality rating, out of five stars, there is also a good value rating based on the quality rating, the retail selling price per 750ml bottles and the average price of the wines in a given category, the final value determined by the equation A x (C÷B). The cellar that emerged as the overall winner of this year's value awards is Brandvlei, a co-operative near Worcester. As the majority of its crop is sold in bulk, with only around two per cent bottled under the BC range, one wonders how readily available these wines are. The positive of offering fantastic value - the BC Ruby Cabernet Merlot 2005 scored 2½ stars, costs R14.50 and scores 10/10 for value - is surely cancelled if the wines are available only from the cellar or few retail outlets, both of which require a lengthy car journey and consequent extra cost.

The choice is wide, with something for every taste and some very smart wines making the cut (most of the ratings are around the 2 to 3 star mark, occasionally a little on the low side), so the best bet is to look around the shelves at your nearest retail outlet.

In the plethora of wine guides on the market, this duo do offer a different perspective and should satisfy those who prefer to make buying decisions based solely on price or reputation.