Perhaps one shouldn’t be too harsh on the foolish followers of fashion. After all, when the wine glass remains undrunk, it’s an economic pinch.

Finally, some cynics say, the penny has dropped: shiraz (or to use its more pretentious, pompous local appellation ‘syrah’) seems to be losing its hold as mainliner on the fashion catwalk. Maybe ordinary wine drinkers are finally getting fed-up with the posturing, not to mention high alcohols and jammy, whammy fruits.

While Christian Eedes reports that entries for Wine magazine’s annual shiraz competition has dropped by some 25% since last year, The New York Times’ cheery wine writer Eric Asimov starts his latest report with a joke: ‘What’s the difference between a case of syrah and a case of pneumonia? You can get rid of the pneumonia.’

Will the headline to his article, Is There Still Hope for Syrah?, turn out to be the refrain from this year’s local taste-off? In hindsight, it seems quite poignant that it is called a ‘challenge’ by the magazine - which, of course, dumped its pinotage competition when the shiraz fad was bubbling up. (Need anyone be reminded of the status of pinotage these days?)

Asimov neatly explains how the Americans fell into the Aussie wine trap of the bold and beautiful (but forgot that people at home had to drink the big, sweet stuff). Of course, when winemakers in South Africa jumped on the fashion wagon, they quickly pointed to the similarities between our (warm) climate and that of the Rhône - and out marched the hefty alcoholic numbers, sweetly chiselled up by American oak. (As if there had never been quite decent and drinkable shiraz around decades ago.) (And, by the way, Asimov reports that the best American shiraz comes from the cooler regions.)

Fashion of the time also introduced South Africa to the questionable qualities of viognier. Why this pungent grape (at best a curiosity in and from its ‘home’ in Condrieu) entered the Cape wine arena as a fad is another puzzlement. Can one hope that this too will fade - as wine fashions do?