I do realise that this title would itself provide ammunition to the prohibitionist lobby, but I’ll try to mitigate the effect. In the course of an everyday WhatsApp chat not long ago, a friend wrote something to the effect that “I abhor drinking alone”. I can’t remember the context, but I think the implication was something more general than a personal preference being expressed – if the word wasn’t “abhor”, it was certainly one that carried some implicit moralising suggestion. Or perhaps, as someone who frequently drinks alone, I was over-sensitive to it. (Actually, I rather think that this rather noisy and highly social friend doesn’t much like doing anything alone – whereas I do; I also enjoy eating and drinking with others, but not too often.)

“Drinking alone” … The idea of the “solitary drinker” has a negative resonance in our culture, and for all I know it’s frequently merited (I’m far from denying the terrible, widespread effects of alcohol abuse, whether amongst solitary drinkers or rowdy party-goers). It certainly doesn’t immediately suggest someone cheerfully opening a selected bottle of wine to go with the dinner he’s (usually) carefully prepared for himself, or lying back on the sofa afterwards to rewatch an old episode of the Sopranos with feet resting on the sleeping dog, and a glass of – ah, here’s the rub, perhaps  – brandy. It all somehow surreptitiously suggests that the purpose of the drinking is to get drunk, and that the drinker is probably a miserable old bastard.

I daresay I’ve been called that more often than I realise. And I do confess to enjoying a slight alcoholic buzz (surely that’s part of the point?). But, generally, I don’t think about my “drinking alone”, nor do I worry those who might care about me as far as I know. Nonetheless I can’t help wondering if I have to some extent internalised the prejudices against, especially, the solitary drinker of spirits. Perhaps this was behind a vague decision a month or two back to cut down on the postprandial brandy to which I have become accustomed in recent years (note the avoidance of the word “addicted”) – while simultaneously cutting down on wine, and probably reducing overall alcohol intake (see here).

The practical content of this move was to decide not to immediately order in a case, when my stocks were running out, of my “house” brandies – KWV 10 Year Old, with the finer 12 Year Old for when I feel I deserved it. (There are many excellent local brandies around, but the KWV to my mind offers the best value for money, and I like the stuff very well and, differently from wine, don’t mind not having much variation.) It seemed a not bad idea to see for myself whether in fact I was indeed entitled to say “accustomed” rather than “addicted”.

I fear the evidence is not entirely soothing. Once the 10 Year Old had run out, the 12 Year old quickly went in the same inevitable direction. Perhaps the pace was slowing, but I was still feeling the urge for something with that sublime intense power of a good, unadulterated spirit (I can’t bear diluted brandy – or whisky). So I started reaching to the back of the cupboard where I keep such things.

Predictably, I mostly found stuff that had drifted out of easy reach either because I was unlikely to want it, or because it was too special to take lightly. Among the latter group were some bottles with just a tot or two left that I suppose I was saving for a special occasion. An occasion like this, for example…. So, over the next few nights I finished the dregs of my last Wilderer grappa (properly known here as “husk spirit”) – Wilderer is arguably the best of the local grappa producers, though Dalla Cia fans might disagree. And, even more sadly-happily, I finally emptied the exquisite bottle of exquisite Spirit of FMC – made from the dregs of the famous FMC chenin, and the loveliest single local grappa I know, in the modern, fragrant Italian style. I wonder if they still make it; it’s certainly not easily available. And then, farewell to that even more rare creature, Eben Sadie’s hanepoot witblitz, Blitsem; so delicate and refined, despite its 48% alcohol.

I haven’t touched the half bottle of Oude Meester Souverein, the 17-year old that to my mind was easily the best local brandy in regular commercial production before Distell (as it was then) unforgivably ditched the label. A very special occasion will be needed for that. And there’s an oldish bottle still untouched of a good Cognac, Château Fontpinot – no special feelings about that, except that it must get consumed with appropriate care. The other foreigner in my cupboard (Portuguese) was not exactly at the back, as I do have a satisfying glass of it occasionally (it falls into the careful treat category); anyway it is too intense, almost pungent, to just toss back: Niepoort Aguardente Velhíssima. “Extra Old” is what the label says, and I believe it; “Hand Selected Casks” it also says, which I sufficiently don’t doubt that I wonder why they need to make such a silly, cheap blandishment.

Among the largely unwanted and therefore ignored were three bottles, all of which proved (from gingerly sips) to be more pleasing than I remembered. Not so much, the apple brandy that Paul Cluver  experimented with quite a few years back; it succumbed partly to marketing difficulties, partly – I’d guess – to its being not so great. Kaapzicht’s expensive and portentously packaged 20 Year Old was, it seemed to me back then, to show the problem that estates (bar Boplaas) have when offering old brandies and special selection compared with the big producers: they just don’t have sufficient choice to select from. This brandy also shows that age isn’t everything: it had lost some freshness and gained a lot of oaky flavours. But I did rather enjoy my sip last night, and will have some more.

And lastly, what is almost certainly the best and most subtle of its type: Cape XO Buchu Brandy, traditionally a medicine, and produced by an outfit called Kaapse Liqueurs. Rather nice in its refinement, not at all requiring one to be sick before sipping. I’m glad to have it in the cupboard, with its sprig of buchu still infusing in the bottle, and I’ll happily haul it out now and then.

But. But. If my brandy-drinking career, solitary or convivial, is to continue at all, I need more than bottles offering just the occasional great treat or attractive curiosity. Perhaps it should be consumed with ever-greater circumspection, yet I confess the cupboard needs replenishing with some house brandy. And I know where to find it.

• Tim James is one of South Africa’s leading wine commentators, contributing to various local and international wine publications. His book Wines of South Africa – Tradition and Revolution appeared in 2013.

Cap Classique specialist Graham Beck has announced the appointment of Lizemari Geldenhuys to its winemaking team, effective January. She reports to cellarmaster Pierre de Klerk.

Geldenhuys holds a BSc in Viticulture and Oenology from Stellenbosch University and previously worked at Kleine Zalze, where she began in August 2016.

There are strong opinions about the use of cultured yeasts in winemaking. I need to acknowledge here that some years ago I did some paid work for a yeast company, Lallemand, although I haven’t done any work for them in a few years now. But the fact that I have earned money from a yeast company in the past needs disclosing. Having said this, I’m also a big fan of the natural wine movement, and most of the wines I love are made with indigenous or wild yeasts. The significance of having worked with a yeast company is that I know quite a bit about the subject of yeasts, and so I hope that my opinions here are informed.

For many people, the notion of a terroir wine is tightly coupled with the idea of using wild yeasts. The notion that local populations of yeasts present in vineyards constitute a microbial aspect to terroir is one that has gained ground now that next-generation sequencing makes it possible to see what’s actually present in the vineyard. In the past, microbes had to be cultured before you could identify them, and this selection step meant that scientists weren’t able to see everything present, just microbes that could be grown in a petri dish. Recent work has shown that in many cases wild ferments that take place in the winery are finished off by strains of Saccharomyces cerevisiae that are present in the vineyard and which are local. Interestingly, in some cases the ferments were done with yeasts that had arrived in barrels. And it’s slightly complicated story because there are also winery-resident populations of yeasts that can complete a fermentation. It used to be thought that if a winery had been using cultured yeasts in the past, then their current ferments wouldn’t really be wild, but they’d be carried out by residual yeasts from previous fermentations. This seems to be the case sometimes, but not all the time.

So if yeasts are local, surely they are part of terroir, right? This is also a complicated topic, the actual yeast populations present depending on two things. One, the weather of the year. And, two, the fungicide regime used. It seems that the fungicides used commonly in organics and biodynamics, copper and sulfur, change the microbial populations quite a bit. And because climate varies, these populations also change from year to year. For terroir effects, we really want to see something stable across years – such as the influence of the soil type. This allows us to recognize the site signature, and for terroir to be an interesting concept it has to be stable across vintages even though the wines will show vintage variation.

However, I understand why some people can’t countenance using cultured yeasts, and insist on wild ferments, even when they are making terroir wines. It’s the issue of agency.

A few years ago I visited Domaine Michel Redde in Pouilly-Fumé, in France’s Centre Loire. I stepped into the cellar with Sébastien Redde, and saw if full of large-format oak. We tasted the wines and they were soulful and distinctive. I said: ‘I assume these are all wild-ferment?’ No, says Sébastien, we use cultured yeasts. Why, I asked, a little surprised: this place had all the hallmarks of the sort of winery where indigenous ferments were the norm. His answer was that they had used wild fermentations, but found that they weren’t getting the terroir signal strongly enough. So they’d gone back to cultured yeast because they felt that gave them the clearest expression of the different sites they worked with.

For Redde this decision seems a logical one. It’s about tuning the signal to get rid of any noise. But, again, for many wineries to use a cultured yeast is something they could never consider.

Let’s remember, though, that almost all cultured yeasts were at some stage wild. They were selected from nature because they had interesting properties. Opponents of cultured yeasts claim that they are artificial and are created in the laboratory, which is not true. And with the existence of cultured non-Saccharomyces yeasts, it’s possible to emulate a wild fermentation, where several species take part in the fermentation process in a dynamic way.

Overall, we need to remember that wine is a fermented product, and that the basis of terroir is that the vines create a growth medium for the yeasts to then eat. It’s changes in this growth medium that have their origins in the vineyard site, which then influences vine physiology, that results in different compounds being produced by the yeasts as they make wine. Yeast companies love to emphasize how different yeasts can create different flavours in the wine, but a lot of this is marketing. While there are significant differences in the way yeast strains work, ultimately the yeasts are going to be affected very strongly by changes in the must (or must and skins, for red wines) and thus even the same yeast will make quite different wines given different vineyard sites.

Perhaps the best answer to the question above is: “It’s complicated”. But yes, you can absolutely talk about terroir even when using cultured yeasts. It’s all about the motivation of the winegrower. If you are setting out to make a terroir wine, you will use the toolkit of interventions you have in a wise way, and through trial and error will find a way to express your site in an intelligent way. The tools themselves aren’t the problem: it is the intention of the winegrower. It’s simplistic to suggest that a do-nothing approach will result in the truest expression of a vineyard site. As mentioned above, sometimes targeted intervention can help strip unwanted noise from the desired signal.

• Jamie Goode is a London-based wine writer, lecturer, wine judge and book author. With a PhD in plant biology, he worked as a science editor, before starting wineanorak.com, one of the world’s most popular wine websites.

What dish to pair with Patatsfontein Steen 2024? We were tasting this new release with winemaker Reenen Borman at Magica Roma in Pinelands, and chef Franco Zezia suggested basil pesto risotto. The Patatsfontein tends to have a fynbos-like aromatic and my instinct was that it just might complement the pesto. It turned out to a perfect match and reminded me why wine appreciation is so very rewarding.

Wine has been at the heart of human civilization for millennia – woven into the social fabric, from religious ritual to a crucial component of gastronomy. Today, however, we are witnessing both a rise in health-conscious attitudes and a more sanctimonious approach to alcohol consumption.

Prohibitionism seems to be taking hold, but this isn’t prohibition in the speakeasy-and-bathtub-gin sense of the 1920s, but rather a subtler, more insidious push against alcohol. The World Health Organization (WHO) leads the charge, calling for higher taxes, advertising bans, and stark health warnings and government health authorities around the world are falling into line.

Once, wine was granted a free pass while beer and spirits bore the brunt of regulation. Not anymore. The old adage that moderate consumption is good for you is under fire, replaced with the absolutist claim that no amount of alcohol is safe. What if this narrative takes hold entirely?

There is an obvious parallel to be drawn with cigarettes – wine risks being swept up in the kind of public health crusade that turned cigarettes from a symbol of sophistication into a social sin. Can it withstand the growing wave of neo-prohibitionism, or is it set for exile to the fringes of society?

There was a time when cigarettes were chic – endorsed by everybody from doctors to movie stars. But as evidence of harm became undeniable, the tobacco industry was hit with relentless restrictions: advertising bans, heavy taxation, smoking prohibitions in public spaces.

How worried should the global wine industry be? Progress in reducing tobacco use has been significant but it’s not like it’s anywhere close to being eradicated. According to WHO, there were 1.25 billion adult tobacco users globally in 2024 – about 1 in 5 adults – compared to 1 in 3 in 2000.

Still, not ideal if you’re a tobacco grower. Could wine suffer a similar fate? The warning signs are there, and wine risks being framed as just another vice, rather than a cultural artefact that adds beauty to life. If the perception shifts from pleasure to peril, the impact on consumption could be profound.

Wine can and must resist and here I return to the experience of Patatsfontein Steen 2024 with pesto risotto. Wine has advantages cigarettes never had. For one, it is deeply entrenched in cuisine and by extension, a life less ordinary. Unlike smoking, which has largely become a solitary act, wine is communal – part of meals, celebrations, and social rituals.

Then there’s premiumization. Wine is able to market itself as an artisanal, cultural product – more in line with haute cuisine than hard liquor. The rise of organic, biodynamic, and low-intervention wines plays into broader wellness trends, allowing the industry to sidestep some of the stigma attached to alcohol. In this regard, the decline of cheap bulk wine as a macro-trend can’t be lamented too much. There is a risk that wine becomes too expensive for everyday drinking but so be it.

Ultimately, wine’s survival depends on whether it remains more than just a drink. If it holds onto its status as a vital part of gastronomy and hence culture in general, it will likely endure. But if it’s reduced to just another intoxicant, it could well face the same slow decline as cigarettes.

For now, at least, wine has history on its side. Eight thousand years and counting. The question is: Can wine adapt to what is quite possibly a fundamental ideological shift or are we living through the end of an era?

Recently I suffered, you might say, a coincidence involving an article on this website. The bit that happened elsewhere was in a collection of trivial but predictably entertaining musings by Bill Bryson, called I’m a Stranger Here Myself. This particular musing that accompanied my breakfast was about American obesity (and perhaps his own, at least incipiently); browsing the relevant library shelves, Bill was pleased to find a book called Don’t Diet, by Dale M. Atrens, Ph,D. However, he then brought up what he said was a “customary aversion to consulting a book by anyone so immensely preposterous as to put “Ph.D” after his name”.

An aversion to the apparently boastful invocation of titles and qualifications and awards, especially in ostensibly irrelevant places, is one I share. Somewhat connectedly, later that day I noticed (and then read, with interest), the measured article on Winemag listed as: “Dr Justus Apffelstaedt: Alcohol and cancer – how much should you care?” The author is, as the customary description at the end told us, a “surgeon, oncologist, and researcher” as well as a wine-lover, and thus well qualified to offer us such an article. So, to be fair, putting the professional title “Dr” upfront (as with Dale M.Atrens’s Ph.D) is really just a shorthand CV, to assure a possible reader that the writer has, at least ostensibly, qualifications that make his article worth reading – or at least giving a try. It seems a practice that medical doctors who take to print are prone to follow.

The only other significant upfront assertion of a qualification I can easily find on this website comes with the pieces by “Greg Sherwood MW” (and I shall return to MWs later). Dr Jamie Goode doesn’t mention his PhD in plant biology except in the brief note at the end of his articles – although his scientific background is often relevant to what he writes. The note at the end of Dariusz Galasiński’s articles does tell us, relevantly, that he’s a linguist and professor at the University of Wroclaw – but you have to google and find an academic context to learn that he can write “MA, PhD, DSc, DSc” after his name. (And that reminds me, with its un-English repetition, of how amusing I found the wish of the newish owner of Vergenoegd Löw to be recognised as “Professor Dr Dr Peter Löw” – see here.) I can also point out that I myself don’t think it of relevance to my wine jottings to point out that I too have a PhD, as it’s in English literature. In fact, normally the only time I choose to use my title is when filling out the forms in doctors’ and dentists’ surgeries, as I rather hope it will annoy the medics. But I also don’t mention any awards or my Cape Wine Masters thing (is it a qualification?), though it was given in Platter’s when I worked for that, so maybe I’m just being characteristically modest – or doubtful that anyone will be impressed.

Someone who does most egregiously and inevitably like to mention, in wine contexts, both her CWM and her no doubt estimable but here totally irrelevant PhD, is that pleasant and ubiquitous competition and Platter’s judge, Dr Winifred Bowman (“fondly known as Winnie in wine circles”, the Amorim Cork Cap Classique Challenge shares with us). She is, she tells us, “a qualified physiotherapist, biomedical scientist and obtained a PhD in Education (Didactics)”, but doesn’t explain what any of that’s got to do with those “wine circles”. Maybe she feels it somehow gives a bit of gravitas to her judgements, so it might be insecurity rather than inappropriate pride behind the invocation.

I have yet to notice obvious insecurity in any of the Masters of Wine I have had the privilege, and sometimes pleasure, of meeting. And why should there be? Along, arguably, with Master Sommeliers, whose orientation is more service-oriented and a touch less “academic”, they have attained, with dedicated effort, skill and talent, the most exalted reaches of formal qualification in what we should call, I suppose, wine consumption – as opposed to production (where viticulturists and oenologists and scientists can get pretty far in prestigious studious achievement).

It’s hard to think, in fact, of any other qualification that is so relentlessly invoked anywhere. Certainly, in academe you don’t see this forward flashiness with meaningful abbreviations; qualifications are usually confined, if offered at all, to brief and subsidiary accounts of authors. Looking at my bookshelves, I see some written by MWs who let us know their claim not only on the title page but also the front cover: Wine Myths and Realty by Benjamin Lewin MW, Authentic Wine by Jamie Goode and Sam Harrop MW…. But not all. Rhône Renaissance author Remington Norman (an earlier generation, and also rather posh) doesn’t advertise his MW or his PhD, and Jancis Robinson and Julia Harding are equally restrained in the Oxford Companion, World Atlas, Wine Grapes, et al.

I mentioned “Greg Sherwood MW” on this website – and I see that even Greg’s email address and website URL include the qualification: there’s determination for you! It’s not uncommon, though, is my impression. Tim Atkin’s private email doesn’t mention his MW, but, boy, he makes up for it elsewhere; it’s on his website, instagram account, every one of his publications – there’s even an “MW” as well as “Master of Wine” squeezed onto every single one of his lucrative score stickers for bottles, so two assertions in that tiny space.

All this is also inevitably something of a triumph for the Institute of Masters of Wine in pushing their excellent brand. Why not? It’s a brash, shouty and self-assertive world we live in, our little wine corner included.

• Tim James is one of South Africa’s leading wine commentators, contributing to various local and international wine publications. His book Wines of South Africa – Tradition and Revolution appeared in 2013.