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French without chic
12 April 2005
The spirit of the Calyon Trophy for
Bordeaux blends was all about looking to France as a model for elegant wines
– but, judging by some aspects of the awards ceremony, the Frogs could do
with a few return lessons in appropriate social behaviour. I’m told that a
few eyebrows were raised immediately when the black-tied guests (mostly rich
clients and executives of the sponsoring bank) trooped in to the banquet in
Rosebank’s plush Park Hyatt Hotel ballroom.
Air France apparently needs to be told
that, even if the airline stumps up a few plane tickets, it doesn’t look
chic (in fact it looks downright tacky) to have little plastic advertising
flags on each table, hanging over the foie gras…. This in addition to the
self-congratulatory speeches, and to the large advertising banners (one each
for the airline and the bank), which also didn’t much add to the old-world
refined understatement of the occasion.
It was in pretty near as bad taste when
the main sponsors used the occasion for an additional lengthily boring
speech smugly detailing bits of in-house news.
Those who, unfairly, didn’t get a
mention anywhere as sponsors were the judges (well, the local ones at
least). Surely it counts as sponsorship to give your time and supposed
skills with no payment? Most competition organisers in South Africa seem to
think the judges (well, the local ones at least) should simply be grateful
to be there, graciously allowed to do the work. Isn’t it about time these
people (who like to think of themselves as professionals, after all)
collectively objected to this rather contemptuous attitude?
[See comment at end]
I do hope that Mr Fridjhon, as
organiser and panel chair, wasn’t similarly
obliged to have his labours go
unrewarded.
There is, incidentally, a more charming
bit of irony connected with the competition. There’s a student sponsorship
involved (amounting to vastly less, of course, than the cost of the
banquet alone, and tax-deductable, but helping one to feel that one’s elitist
pleasure are socially useful). The lucky recipient is not off to Burgundy or
Bordeaux. No, he’s going to Melbourne ... presumably to learn to love the
sort of wines with which Australia is helping to destroy those European
traditions of elegance and restraint that this competition is supposed to be
fostering.
***
Still on a French note: Families,
sadly, can break up quickly. So can business partnerships as a result. It’s
not many months since Mark Siddle of Domaine Bertagna in Burgundy
was announcing a joint venture with the fashionable local
winery De Toren. Alas, some of Mark’s other little pleasures in life came to
the attention of his wife and, well, there’s lots of dissolution as a
result. (And a revelation of the shallowness of Mark’s effective
presentation of himself as ‘owner’ of Bertagna, etc; he merely married
richly above himself.) While the maiden vintage of the wine will be released
(in France) in a few months, and the status of the partnership is not
entirely clear, the farm is up for sale, I believe – in case you’re looking
for some good Helderberg vineyard. |
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Comments With
regard to Calyon judges being treated as professionals: I'm told that, in
fact, the cheques are in the post, as it were. So the judges will be able to
eat this month, after all.
It has also been pointed out to me that I really meant
Adelaide when I said Melbourne is the place that the sponsored student is
going to. This mistake is, of course, simply due to my elderly brain being
somewhat overburdened – the snide suggestion that I might think all
Australian cities are the same is grossly unfair (though I do think they all
share one major disadvantage...). Even more snidely (how can people be
so rude?) it was suggested that the skills to be taught this poor young man
there
are more likely to transform the Cape wine industry for the good than my
'slavering and myopic obsession with the Old World'. |
