Peter van der Merwe
John Platter South African Wine Guide 2001 edited by Phillip van Zyl (Andrew McDowall)
Wines and Vineyards of South Africa by Wendy Toerien (Struik)
The Sunday Telegraph Good Wine Guide 2001 by Robert Joseph (Dorling Kindersley)
Wine snobbery is a puzzling phenomenon, to say the least. Let’s face it, few can tell the difference between of a R10 bottle and a R100 bottle of wine without some fairly pricey training. And if you undergo this training you’re simply paying to become dissatisfied with otherwise perfectly acceptable and much cheaper goods.
The mind boggles, but there are clearly enough wannabe wine snobs to justify a veritable clutch of books on the subject, ranging from the perennial John Platter guide to the more eclectic offerings in the “How to Find Your Way Around the Sonoma Vineyards by Mountain Bicycle” vein.
Platter’s guide remains a South African institution, albeit one now showing signs of middleaged spread as every investment banker and his dog opens a new boutique winery.
Twentyone years after offering his first tentative ratings of South Africa’s wines, in John Platter South African Wine Guide 2001 he rates and describes more than 4?000 current releases and vintages and throws in accommodation and restaurant tips for good measure for the more serious wine route aficionado.
In all, 14 wines get the ultimate Platter accolade five stars in 2001, including three sweet dessert wines, much to my mother’s approval. If you find yourself fancying a glass or two of Fat Bastard Chardonnay, for example, Platter recommends the 1999. Sadly, he has no recommendations on the Golden Alibama, of which I found an empty 4,5 litre bottle (I kid you not) in Cape Town’s Hope Street last December. It is listed as “untasted”. Snobs.
A slightly more ascerbic, and more international, view of the wine industry can be found in Robert Joseph’s legendary The Sunday Telegraph Good Wine Guide. There’s no quibbling with Joseph’s viniferous credentials: founding editor of UK Wine magazine, wine correspondent for The Sunday Telegraph and publisher of barrelloads of wine books, he knows his way around the inside of a bottle store better than most.
It’s no surprise, then, that the guide though it says so itself is an excellent reference book for either the wine novice who simply knows what he likes, or the more experienced wine drinker and unbearable bore.
It contains some nopunchespulled food and wine recommendations, the author’s obligatory wine and winery ratings, relatively useful wine definitions and an overview of the winegrowing regions of the world which is almost as patchy as the author believes South African wines are. But it is comprehensive and quirky, and worth a look.
Wendy Toerien’s Wines and Vineyards of South Africa is decidedly less portable, being a whacking great glossy coffee table tome that begs to be allowed to serve as what she calls “an informed introduction to what is happening out there on the Cape’s wine farms: in the vineyard, in the cellar, in the bottle, in the minds of the winemakers”.
She confesses freely to having been selective in featuring certain estates, cellars, coops and corporations, using their track record of “producing consistently fine wine over the years, irrespective of changes in ownership or winemaker”.
Make no mistake, it’s a beautifully designed and illustrated book, offering an overview of the South African wine industry in languorously broad brush strokes, enlivened with historical tidbits and insights into the largerthanlife personalities that dot the local wine landscape.
If you’re looking for a bottle of wine to serve on Saturday night, stick to Platter. But if it’s a taste of the fascinating tapestry of the wine industry you’re after, this is a book that won’t just gathering dust on your coffee table.