About the Prescient Top 20 Wines South Africa 2020
By Christian Eedes, 5 November 2020
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Winemag.co.za has reviewed 20 wine categories in its various reports sponsored by multinational financial services company Prescient over the course of the year. Each report was based on the outcome of a blind tasting of wines entered within the specific category. A Top 10 was announced with the release of each successive report. Producers of the Top 10 were able to purchase stickers reflecting this while producers of the remaining wines were able to acquire regular rating stickers – consumers are encouraged to look out for these in the retail environment.
The programme culminates with the announcement in early-December of the individual best wine per category plus ratings on the 100-point quality scale for all the Top 10 wines.
The timeline is as follows:
Friday 4 December: Best Sweet Wine & Fortifieds
Monday 7 December: Best White Wines
Tuesday 8 December: Best Red Wines
Wednesday 9 December: Best Cap Classique, Best White and Red Overall, Winery of the Year
Howard Siviter | 8 November 2020
The sparkling SA whites are better than Champagne too.
Howard Siviter | 8 November 2020
The best Merlot I’ve ever had is from Muratie in the Stellenboch area. It beats anything from France no problem. Unfortunately it’s very hard to get in the UK.
dion martin | 5 November 2020
I totally get that.
But you are going to have a blind tasted Shiraz scoring 94 points winning Shiraz of the Year, and a sighted Shiraz scoring 97 points. Yet the lower scoring Shiraz would be crowned Shiraz of the year, stickers and all. This leaves me with the taste of burnt rubber.
Cheers
Dion
Christian Eedes | 5 November 2020
Hi Dion, We contend there should be extra reward for those wineries that subject themselves to the rigour of a BLIND tasting.
Dion Martin | 5 November 2020
Dear Christian
I am looking forward to this. However isn’t there a certain level of conflict? Take for example an award like Prescient Winery of the Year, the resultant stickers, the PR miles, hype etc Lets say that winery is Cederberg Wines. Yet, if the average punter did a cursory search of the winemag data base 2020 reviews, the punter may find that a winery like Mullineux outscored Cederberg in most categories.
There is thus a conflict as Winemag does out-of-competition tasting AND in-competition tasting, leaving punters confused as to what is say the best Shiraz as per Winemag for 2020…Or am I just creating unnecessary confusion?
Cheers
Dion
Christian Eedes | 5 November 2020
Hi Dion, In order to be in the running for Top 20 and higher honours, wines must have been tasted blind by the panel – wines tasted sighted by me alone are not eligible.