The annual Platter Guide announced its Five Star laureates last week - an event that seems to enjoy a disproportionate amount of hype in the wine industry. After all, the considered opinion of the nearly 20 tasters who today comprise the Platter team is, in theory at least, no more significant than any of the other judging panels that comment on the performances of country's wine producers.

Perhaps the guide's results appear that much more newsworthy because of their shelf life: unlike Wine magazine, for example, (whose panel tastings can never last longer in the spotlight than the month of publication) the Platter Guide really does cover a calendar year. Moreover, the guide is definitive and inclusive in a way that wine competitions and panel adjudications can never be: between June and August every year the tasters make their way through whatever has been released - or will be released - by the industry in the currency of the book.

There can be no such thing as an uncontroversial result when judgment is passed on a matter as subjective as aesthetics: one man's "rich, dense Shiraz" is another's "pea soup". Even before you take account of the baggage and prejudices of commentators who think they should be on the Platter panel, or who have public-relations clients whose wines failed to live up to their hype, the Platter Five Star list is a Chernobyl waiting to happen.

This makes it easy to for anyone - including (I have no doubt) the Guide's contributors - to find fault with some of the wines on the list, or with wines that didn't make the cut. However, to suggest there is some kind of model result is rank ignorance rather than naivety. The wines that might have made up such a group even a year ago may well have been superseded by newcomers. The good and great of the 1990s are now mostly in the second division, and by the time this year's leaders are recognised as such, they will probably have fallen off their pedestal.

What is encouraging is that most of the serious players are represented - even if not in the category for which they are best known. Rustenberg is there for its Five Soldiers Chardonnay, Meerlust for its Pinot Noir and Neil Ellis for his Grenache.

Among the better established "growths", Kanonkop is there for the 2007 Cabernet, Boekenhoutskloof for its 2008 Cab (confirming Marc Kent's reputation as the most successful producer of Five Star wines in the history of the guide) and Le Riche for the 2007 CWG Cabernet Reserve. It's no surprise to see the Mulderbosch Chardonnay; the Tokara Directors' Reserve white; the Cape Point Isliedh; the Sadie Family Palladius; the Haskell Pillars Shiraz; and the Eagles Nest Shiraz. The return of the Vergelegen Red to the Five Star ranks was also not unexpected.

When it comes to dessert wines, the Nederburg Edelkeur, the Nederburg Noble Late Harvest, the Fleur du Cap Noble Late Harvest and the Klein Constantia Vin de Constance are just what you would expect to find on any credible listing. The Port section was also familiar territory: Boplaas; two from De Krans; and the perennial JP Bredell.

With what now appears to have been inside knowledge, my column last week spoke of the enormous improvements in quality at the cellars of SA's major wine producers. Nederburg's Platter result confirms the prescience of this view: it emerged as the Winery of the Year, with five Five Star awards (add the Ingenuity Red and White and the Private Bin D253 2009 to its dessert wine awards) as well as the Superquaffer of the Year with the Nederburg Lyric. Three Five Star awards for Klein Constantia, two for Kleine Zalze and two for Steenberg reveal the depth of quality at all these cellars. For the full results visit www.wineonaplatter.com.

- Fridjhon has been a Platter Guide taster and contributor since the 1980s.

From Business Day, 20 November 2010