Let them eat cake and drink Screaming Eagle (and other quaint tales of American life)
18 June 2005

The reason why some publicity-conscious local wine label punters and producers make a beeline for the flashy American Wine Spectator magazine and its ratings (dear God, please let it get more than 90 out of 100!) as the ultimate accolade, is all too obvious: the publication is the foremost promoter of wine as a snobbish business. As wine mags and columns around the world reduce themselves to being lists of ratings and prices, the Speculator heads the pack, with Decanter panting desperately behind, trying (quite successfully) to lower itself to that level.

With its larger-than-any-other format, and glossy advertisements ranging from golfing estates to private jets, many have wondered why the world’s more famous – and expensive – wine labels tend to get the top ratings, despite so-called blind tastings. (I’m intrigued to see, actually, whether Rust en Vrede continues to feature in the annual Top 100 list now that Jean Engelbrecht has left his dad to do the PR schmoozing.)

The magazine’s readership, judged from the letters page, is also a pretty dull if upmarket lot, mostly writing in to thank the kind editors for pointing out another five-star, ultra-expensive eatery in their neighbourhood that they are given official permission to enjoy.

In a recent issue, however, one reader seems to ruffle the glossily permed feathers of the editorial team. His note is worth quoting – especially for the would-be big-timers from the Helderberg and Simonsberg. ‘I can afford to drink any wine I wish and usually do with dinner every evening. That said, I increasingly find your magazine to be immoral and snobbish’, it says. ‘When most of the world’s people can’t even afford raw “moonshine” (or clean water, for that matter), you make us Americans look like Louis XIV’s French court just before the revolution. For shame. Let’s drink it but not flaunt it. Stop inviting the world to hate and fear but not respect us.’ (That is, it’s all OK and the world economy is really well organised, just don’t tell Osama and the peasants about what we do….)

In reply, the editor mumbles on about ‘outstanding wines that happen to be expensive’, but it is the pompous last sentence that surely must have had the letter-writer giggling in his Riedl glassful of $200 cabernet: ‘Maintaining high standards is not “flaunting” anything; it shows respect and admiration for those whose talent and hard work allow them to excel.’ With the reference to hard work, I suspect he doesn’t mean the grape-pickers. So, now, isn’t that a sweet message for our own $100-plus wine peddlers?

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Actually, whenever I get depressed about things local, I do find it a good tonic to glance at life in America. An old friend who lives, believe it or not, in Arizona sent me the following quote from an advertising blub from Ravenswood Winery, bringing civilisation to the desert in the form of ultra-ripe, ultra-alcoholic zinfandel:

‘The Ravenswood Zinfomaniac Tour is hitting Phoenix at Sportsmans this month. The Ravenswood urban assault vehicle will roll up to our Camelback and Arrowhead locations, ready to bring you a charged wine sampling experience in true Zinfomaniac form. Check out the zinners confessional where consumers can confess to drinking wimpy wines, outdoor e-card photo booth, sampling bar (taste 15 Ravenswood wines) and the TV featuring Ravenswood wine history, product and fun!’

Doesn’t that make our own dear PR people – and our own dear pinotage – seem splendidly chaste and refined?

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