Amateurs, professionals, experts and cheats 8 March 2007

Some thoughts on the Fridjhon-Pendock spat, from Tim James's latest Noseweek article

People who do sensible things with their time might still, I hope, have respect for the traumas and tensions of wine journalism. They will understand the recent public splashes in the murky little pool of winewriting, as a few contextually sizeable fishes furiously flailed their fins. You hadn’t noticed? Yes, it’s admittedly not much of a pond, so let me explain – only briefly, to spare you too much about a few skirmishing wine journalists pretending that the pen is mightier than the sword.

Well, Michael Fridhon, invariably tagged as a (or even the) ‘leading local wine writer’, turned in remarkably vicious fashion on Neil Pendock, describable as a (or even the) ‘prolific local wine writer’. First, in correspondence on the internet pages of Grape, Fridjhon rounded off some tart comments on his colleague by pointing to the latter’s continuing ‘estrangement from the truth’.

Then, clearly feeling much provoked, in a letter to the Financial Mail (where Pendock has a column and had written slightingly of a Fridjhonian venture) he complained that Pendock had ‘persistently denigrated’ both the Platter Guide and the Trophy Wine Show (another Fridjhon baby) ever since he was ‘relieved of his position’ on the tasting teams of both. The two organisations had sacked Pendock, he said, because they had a low opinion of his tasting abilities (taking a chance here, in fact, given that Platter had never given this as a reason for not continuing to use him). Merely ‘an enthusiastic amateur’, he sneered loftily.

Of course, ‘amateur’ is untrustworthily ambiguous. Mostly it implies, as here, incompetent and uncommitted dabbling, but resonating echoes of its Latin origins more flatteringly suggest the amateur of wine as the lover of wine – someone, perhaps, without the lucrative, but arguably contaminating, involvements of a professional entrepreneur like Fridjhon.

Ignoring this ambiguity was shortsighted, given that Pendock’s striving for mass appeal has included offering himself as the plain, unpretentious friend of the grape: an ‘amateur of wine’ as he had already proudly claimed. So now our Neil, instead (as far as I know) of running to his lawyer, ran to his computer and, sensibly ignoring the real accusations, wrote a piece ‘in praise of amateurs’. He contrived there to equate ‘professional’ and ‘snob’, and to suggest that this unsavoury nexus (Fridjhon, let’s guess) is the origin of wine consumption’s ‘relentless downward spiral’.

We might legitimately wonder, I think, why Pendock offers the public quite so much of his writings, in places normally claimed by professionals, if he so happily embraces amateurism. But perhaps he sees himself as an expert amateur, or an amateur expert, so I’ll venture a hopefully reconciliatory thought from the British social scientist David Butler: ‘The function of an expert is not to be more right than other people, but to be wrong for more sophisticated reasons.’ Surely all winewriters could rally around that description of their role!

One of Pendock’s causes is the useless inadequacy (except to the profits of their organisers) of wine competitions – at least those ones he doesn’t, presumably amateurishly, participate in. Their odd and inconsistent results make it difficult to disagree with him here, frankly. An interesting example, but also a counterweight, is Wine magazine’s Chenin Challenge (whose tasting panel Fridjhon chairs), which recently announced its latest results. The Challenge has undoubtedly helped raise standards of chenin blanc; it has also encouraged the proliferation of wines with the power, sweetness and oakiness that helps win competitions but doesn’t always make for refreshing partnership with one’s cheese salad or yellowtail steak.

It was probably at least partially in order to confront this problem that this year’s winner was decided on through a byzantine process in which the judges gave both rankings and scores for the finalists, the former being decisive. Extraordinarily, the official winner (KWV’s pleasant enough Val du Chêne) scored a lower average than the runner-up (Forrester-Meinert’s impressive but arguably over-the-top FMC). Neil Pendock was not alone in criticising the processes – another problem was one of the winemakers (Martin Meinert) being on the judging panel.

Also rather odd is that the Challenge’s prize went to an interesting young woman, not to the man who was in charge of KWV’s white wines at the time when this 2004 was made. He, Ian Nieuwoudt, was sacked soon afterwards (though never prosecuted) for illegally adulterating sauvignon blanc. Apparently he proudly confirms that he made the wine, while the KWV insists otherwise. Seeking the truth, how to make the tough choice between a fraudster and his KWV ex-bosses?

• This article first appeared in Noseweek, 'South Africa's unique investigative magazine'