MICHAEL GREEN’S WINE NOTES #249

To what extent is price a factor in evaluating the quality of a wine? A good deal, I suspect.

I have little doubt that when the experts are faced with a high-priced “boutique” wine, perhaps made on the farm of a super-rich Johannesburg businessman who owns a wine estate as a hobby, they are subconsciously inclined to view it with favour, respect and even awe. By the same token, they may well be reluctant to enthuse about reasonably-priced wines that have been sold in large quantities to the ignorant masses for many years.

The celebrated Platter’s South African Wines is an excellent reference for basic information about the South African wine industry, and it is a very useful guide to the quality of wines with which one may not be familiar, but it is by no means infallible. The expert tasters know in advance what they are judging, and they would be superhuman if they were totally unaffected by reputation and price.

Some years ago there was a tendency among them to adopt a slightly patronising attitude to some of the biggest sellers among the Cape wines, to the considerable annoyance of the producers concerned, all big names in the industry. A more reasonable attitude seems to prevail now.

All the same, the real test of wine judging is still the blind tasting, in my opinion, the blind tasting in which you don’t see the label or the bottle.

These philosophical musings arise from two recent examples of blind tastings. At my home recently I presented our private tasting group with five different South African merlot wines. Four of them ranged in price from R45 a bottle to R65. The other was R210 a bottle. This was the Meerlust Merlot of 2005, from a very famous estate at Stellenbosch. The wine was described as being herbal slightly leafy, with mulberry red fruit, a fine, satin-like texture and a musky perfume on the nose.

In the blind tasting it was placed joint second, close behind the De Grendel Merlot of 2008, from Durbanville, red berries, vanilla, chocolate, price R65.

For a balanced picture one must consider many arguments, for example the storage conditions of the wine, and the experience of the tasters, and their mood on the day. Our tasters are all experienced; most of them are involved in the liquor industry.

And the difference in the scores for these two wines was marginal. The joint second place was taken by Guardian Peak Merlot of 2010, price R55. The other wines tasted were Durbanville Hills Merlot 2007 (R64) and Porcupine Ridge Merlot 2008 (R45). They all scored well.

I was quite pleased at the success of the wine from De Grendel. I knew this stately house long ago, when it was the home of Sir de Villiers Graaff, leader of the parliamentary Opposition, and I was a young reporter with the Cape Argus. I gather that the present owner, Sir David Graaff, has maintained the grand tradition, and of course he is making good wines.

A more striking example of the sometimes unexpected results of blind tastings is given in the April issue of Wine magazine. The magazine’s panel of five experts tasted and evaluated 196 South African cabernet sauvignon wines, a labour of love of monumental proportions. Three of these wines were awarded four and a half stars (out of a maximum of five), and 21 were given four stars, a rating which means “excellent, wine of distinction”.

The average price of all 196 wines was R93 a bottle. The average price of the four-star wines was R137, the two most expensive being R300 a bottle. But one of those four-star wines was Obikwa Cabernet Sauvignon 2010, which I buy at my local liquor store for R23 a bottle. This wine is described by the panel as having “cassis, violets and vanilla on the nose. Seductively sweet fruit, fresh acidity and smooth tannins on the palate. Drink now”.

Whether the panel would have given this wine four stars if they had known what it was is, I suppose, a moot point. Obikwa (the name comes from the San people) is a range of wines made by the Distell organisation, the country’s major producer. These wines were made originally for export. They were so successful, in Canada and Australia especially, that it was decided to market them locally.

The Obikwa wines include chardonnay, chenin blanc, sauvignon blanc, pinotage, shiraz, merlot, and the four-star cabernet sauvignon. They all sell at R23 to R30, depending on where you buy them. I wouldn’t grade them all four stars or three, but they are very good value. I drink them regularly, and so do many of my friends, except those who are serious wine tasters. – Michael Green