Michael Fridjhon

Michael Fridjhon Wine Judging Academy 2018: Roll of Honour

By Christian Eedes, 25 April 2018

The Michael Fridjhon Wine Academy, begun in 2007, is a three-day course where candidates are exposed to a range of top local and international wines...

Michael Fridjhon: Is the closure war coming to an end?

By Michael Fridjhon, 25 April 2018

The debate around closures has been part of the world of wine for several decades, and like most matters where belief carries more weight than...

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Sound and thunder – what to make of the proliferation of commentary on SA wine?

By Christian Eedes, 24 April 2018

Another measure of SA wine’s coming of age is the vast number of personalities and ventures seeking to deliver commentary and criticism. Inevitably, it’s only...

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Michael Fridjhon: What’s a fair price to pay for a bottle of SA wine?

By Michael Fridjhon, 28 March 2018

There's an apparently irreconcilable issue around wine pricing in this country. VinPro's research shows that the majority of growers aren't breaking even on their production...

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Michael Fridjhon: Is the SA “Somm” movement losing momentum?

By Michael Fridjhon, 28 February 2018

Several years ago the Cape Wine Academy launched a Cape Sommelier qualification – which turned out to be little more than an introductory course for...

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Michael Fridjhon: Where to for VinPro?

By Michael Fridjhon, 24 January 2018

I suspect it's a thankless task trying to run VinPro, the wine producers' representative body. For a start, you are dealing with literally thousands of...

Michael Fridjhon: Why it’s a good time to be in wine – five reasons to be optimistic about in 2018

By Michael Fridjhon, 29 November 2017

It hasn't been an easy year for South Africa, notwithstanding the ever-increasing excitement around our wines in many of the international markets. The local market...

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Michael Fridjhon: Is score inflation really more akin to currency devaluation?

By Michael Fridjhon, 25 October 2017

A recent Twitter debate around the upward movement of wine scores (elsewhere called “score inflation” - though really it's about currency devaluation) is much more...

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Michael Fridjhon: SA wine’s ongoing lack of transformation

By Michael Fridjhon, 27 September 2017

I was privileged to attend a pre-release showing of a documentary entitled “The Colour of Wine” which dealt with the first very tentative steps towards...

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Michael Fridjhon: Sommeliers and the state of restaurant wine service in SA

By Michael Fridjhon, 26 July 2017

Ten years ago the word “sommelier” did not exist in the active vocabulary of any but the most wine-literate of South Africans. “Wine steward” was...