Editorial: When the pros can’t agree – is SA wine losing its common language?
By Christian Eedes, 18 November 2025
-
Share:
7
It might seem a bit melodramatic to invoke the spectre of the 1995 SAA Shield at this point in our wine history, but Michael Fridjhon’s recent piece serves as a timely reminder that complacency is not the enemy of success alone, but also of cohesion. If the Shield was, as Fridjhon argues, a wake-up call to the excesses of inward-looking certainty back then, the warning today is about something more insidious: the increasingly polarised ecosystem of South African wine and the gathering risk of fragmentation between producers and everyone else – trade, media and consumers.
The golden era – but at what cost?
Let’s be clear: the progress since the 1990s has been profound. The new generation of winemakers – many of them schooled at the feet of global giants – has transformed the landscape. Today, you’re as likely to find a Swartland Chenin on the list at a hip London wine bar as a Burgundy. Foreign critics gush, UK allocations vanish in hours, and South African wines routinely stand shoulder to shoulder with the world’s best, sighted or blind.
So where’s the problem? Isn’t this what we hoped for?
Well, yes. And no.
What Fridjhon points to in his critique of the industry’s reluctance to participate in blind tasting competitions isn’t quite about the blind tasting itself. It’s about what blind tasting stands for: accountability, transparency, and a shared language of quality. And that’s the crux of the issue – not whether a panel of judges prefers one wine over another, but whether we are still talking to one another, challenging each other, building something bigger than individual brands.
Fridjhon isn’t merely advocating blind tastings as a matter of principle (or angling for more entries for the Trophy Wine Show). He’s also pointing to the value of shared scrutiny and seeing beyond one’s own cellar door. On the day Winemag published his article, he privately assembled 24 well-regarded wines – all carrying respectable reputations – for a blind tasting attended by 10 top winemakers and a few judges. The results were striking: average scores drifted towards silver rather than gold or bronze, hinting at a collective tendency toward caution. Even more telling was the lack of consensus on fundamental quality markers. Are the aldehydes in this bubbly acceptable? Is pyrazine in that Cabernet a flaw or a stylistic choice? Among seasoned professionals, the room fractured over the basics.
The slow drift into silos
Whether this reflects a lack of technical agreement, tasting calibration, or simply subjective preference, it’s hard to ignore the broader message: without shared forums for debate, we are losing the muscle memory that binds an industry together. If expert palates can’t reach consensus, what chance do broader conversations have of being useful?
What’s increasingly evident is a widening disconnect. Producers on one side, increasingly disinclined to “submit” their wines to judgment (not without reason – cost, sticker fatigue, questions about marketing ROI, alienation via inconsistent standards); critics, buyers, and consultants on the other, lamenting the erosion of collective calibration. Somewhere in the middle: the punter, trying to piece together a coherent view of an industry that is innovative yet arguably increasingly fragmented.
It could be argued that Fridjhon’s premise is outdated – that producers are already engaging deeply with global peers, and complacency is the furthest thing from their minds. There’s truth there. No one spends time with the likes of Eben Sadie, Andrea Mullineux, or Luke O’Cuinneagain of Vergelegen and comes away thinking they’re phoning it in. This is a generation that reads the journals, tastes the benchmarks, and travels for perspective, in addition to working with the best vineyards they can secure.
However, the core challenge is no longer about quality. It’s about dialogue. It’s about how we construct meaning around the value of South African fine wine. Whether blind competitions still have a role is something reasonable people can disagree on – but disagreement doesn’t require disengagement. Increasingly, though, that’s what’s happening. Producers gravitate to one platform over another; buyers retreat into private tasting circles; critics defend their relevance, often shouting into a void that was once a community.
The cost is missed opportunity and ultimately industry inertia. Innovation in wine rarely happens in isolation. It happens where winemakers, writers, importers, judges, and the trade meet. Where producers say: “These are the vineyards we’re excited about.” Where sommeliers say: “Here’s what diners are responding to.” Where critics provide context – not as scorekeepers but as translators.
Look back at the SAA Shield era – for all its trauma, the aftermath forced people into rooms together. Ideas were exchanged. Standards were argued out loud. The industry got better not because one panel was right, but because everyone was exposed, publicly, to the blind spots.
That shared vulnerability was vital then, and it remains vital now.
If South African wine is to maintain its world-class trajectory, it needs to resist the drift toward silo thinking. The divide between producers and “everyone else” is an unfortunate one, born of tightened budgets, brand defensiveness, and occasionally, a whiff of self-righteousness on both sides. Instead of obsessing over producers versus critics, curated tastings versus formal competitions, we need hybrid spaces: forums for honest tasting, at the winery, in the trade, around the table, with or without judges. Places where different priorities are acknowledged, ideas exchanged, and standards debated, so that we stop talking past each other and start building the consensus that drives progress.
We’ve proven the quality. We’ve earned the attention. But unless we fight for the culture of shared insight, we risk swapping one echo chamber for another. In 1995, the challenge was to wake up to the world. In 2025, it might be to wake up to each other.
-
Share:
Tabbers | 18 November 2025
This article merely sounds like a group of has-beens feeling excluded from the wine world and desperate to remain relevant. It also ignores the fact that fine wine brands are increasingly employing far more sophisticated marketing than was the case in the past. Brands are listening and talking, just not so much to those who once thought they mattered, the same people who want things to remain as they always have been. Direct engagement with a broader generation of international consumers who talk the language of the future inevitably bypasses those who thought they were once the voice of South African wine.
With regards to competitions, fine wine brands often see no point in stickers that speak to a certain audience. Why would they want a Trophy Wine Show sticker that one normally finds on mid-priced bottles in Tops? A gold medal sticker on a R150 bottle speaks more to consumers than the same sticker on a R1500 rand bottle. Those stickers also mean nothing whatsoever in important international markets. Let’s not forget that it’s international markets that often dictate the price of fine wine, not locals. The 1er Grand Cru Classé of Bordeaux have little concern for the views of the people of Aquitaine, they are no longer their consumers. Why do we expect the same of South African fine wine whilst hoping the eventually compete at the same level? Or does self interest hope they never do?
Wine competitions are faceless opinions that most consumers care little about and know even less of. For the majority they could put their own sticker on a bottle declaring “Gold Winner” and appeal to those who put value on it. After all, they only matter to those who need guidance. They are the same people who know little about the world of wine.
On the other end of the spectrum is Tim Atkins who only means something to a tiny percentage of wine professionals or hobbyists that follow current affairs. The vast majority of consumers neither know who he is or care. Yet a handful of geeks wait with baited breath for his musings that are compiled from neither blind nor panel tastings. It is one man’s opinion??? Go figure!
Are winemakers, the boffins in their field, really the people who should be evaluating wine? As someone who has spent decades in the highest level of sommellerie and fine dining I can walk into any restaurant and spot a dozen flaws or mistakes before I’ve even sat down. Does that mean I should be evaluating restaurants to tell consumers of the flaws I have seen? I agree that it is useful in raising standards for restaurateurs, but what purpose does it serve for consumers to know these things? As such, asking me to rate a restaurant for consumers would be different to rating it for the owner. So why use the same methodology of ‘medals’ and then wonder why they don’t score as well as expected?
I’m sure winemakers know the minor flaws in their wines, but accept them as part of the rather unreliable nature of viticulture and fermentation. Just as most diners wouldn’t notice a napkin at a slightly wrong angle of the stamp of a wine glass not straight. In the context of South Africa without the historical context for such, the term ‘stylistic’ merely excuses those minor, characterful flaws.
Sure, a hint of pyrazines from slightly underripe grapes can possibly be prevented, but there’s also the cost implications to consider when it may or may not be perceptible in the finished wine. It leads to an element of risk and acceptance, in the same way a restaurant wouldn’t delay opening for a slightly wonky napkin. Nothing is perfect unless someone seeks to gain from claiming it is. The 100 point wine being a perfect example.
S soni | 19 November 2025
Wow! 🎯 I want to hear more from you 👌👍 please share links of any reviews or podcasts you’ve done 🥂
Hennie Coetzee | 19 November 2025
This! Best comment I’ve read on WM
Gerhard van Huyssteen | 20 November 2025
Impressive argumentation, and excellently written! You should be a regular columnist for Winemag.co.za 😉
Kwispedoor | 18 November 2025
One thing is certain, and that it that most consumers would love to see more top wines being entered into blind tastings. Even if a consumer would ignore the results of such tastings completely when it comes to purchasing decisions (or even reputational considerations), he/she would still find it interesting, even compelling.
I remember a Pinot Noir tasting in the old printed Winemag, way back in 2010. Here are a few takeaways:
1. The ABV, RS, TA & pH of the top wines were provided. I know of nobody that will disapprove of it if that info was made available on reports and reviews nowadays, and many who would welcome it.
2. Likewise, not only the final rating of the wine was provided, but also the individual scores of the five judges. Again, I don’t know of any reader who would object against that.
3. Crystallum’s fresh new 2008 Pinots shot the lights out. (For the 2008 Cuvée Cinema, the only 5-star rating on the tasting, and for the 2008 Peter Max, one of only two 4,5-star ratings.) Surely, a great leg up for an embryonic new brand. And it would have meant a lot less if the big Pinot players in the country weren’t on these tastings. But they were. Always.
4. Some big, established players didn’t doo too well. 2,5 stars for Glen Carlou and HRV. Two stars for Creation and Bouchard Finlayson Galpin Peak. You don’t hear about these brands anymore. Their less-than-favourable ratings in this bind tasting completely destroyed them. I’m being sarcastic because a bad showing in these things are never as bad as some people think. There were actually a few other very well-known (and respected, to this day) producers that only received one star, as well. A bad showing is not going to destroy your brand – you’d have to consistently do very badly in a string of these tastings before any real damage occurs. People also know how fickle these big tastings can be.
5. Which leads nicely to the next point: Creation Pinot Noir 2008 was one of only two wines that received four stars. And the Creation Pinot Noir from the great 2009 vintage? Two stars…
6. On three stars, there was the Two Oceans 2009, level with some big names (Paul Cluver, Paul Cluver Seven Flags, Oak Valley, Radford Dale Freedom, Catherine Marshall, etc.), and of course higher in the pecking order than the big names mentioned in point 4 above. Again, the Two Ocean didn’t annihilate any of these other brands, it just scored some sales for itself. I certainly wasn’t ever going to buy any Two Oceans wine before I saw this report. But I ended up buying quite a few bottles on special offer for R25, because it was quite delicious at the price, especially cooled down a bit. It also surprised the pants off people in blind tastings since. And it aged very nicely under screwcap. I only have one bottle left – so one final time, pants will be flying. Though not quite as good, the 2012 was also worth a punt at the price. But I haven’t bought that wine in over a decade. Why? Because I taste for myself and the quality wasn’t consistent. If it gets the same sort of results in a comparable tasting nowadays, perhaps I’d buy it again. But there are no such comparable tastings nowadays…
Of course, one grants any brand to be as expensive as they can be and still sell all their wine. And as exclusive as they want to be. It’s their brand and why would anyone have a problem with them making maximum profits? Wine is business! There’s absolutely nothing wrong with it, even if it might make me sad that I won’t be drinking their wine anymore. One can choose to make a bit less money and steer your brand in a different direction, though. Wines like Bordeaux First Growths generally go for profit, so the result is that normal wine lovers simply don’t drink their wines anymore. Their wines have now largely become trophies for rich people, especially in the East. But there are other great brands, like Vina Tondonia and Moulin Touchais, which are more reasonably priced and are thus still drunk by real wine lovers.
Erwin Lingenfelder | 18 November 2025
There are wines that earn their reputation. It doesn’t happen because they have won a trophy. It takes a lot of time and is wholly dependent on their track record. The consumers make the decision, not the producers. I am convinced that the five Bordeaux First growths do not enter any competitions. In the 170 years since they were classified there has only been one change. It is up to them to maintain their standards, because if they don’t the consumers will stop buying them. The customer is always right.
Ryan Coetzee | 19 November 2025
The underlying issue, I suspect, is that the only brands whose consumers care about scores are the top ones. That’s why they don’t like blind tastings: it could actually affect their business. But whether a mid-tier brand gets gold, silver or bronze probably doesn’t matter, as long as there’s a sticker on the bottle to encourage the buyer in Tops to reach for their wine.
Telling those premier brands that blind tastings are good for the industry and thus ultimately good for them is unlikely to work: people don’t think like that. They will maximize their personal advantage, having poured their life, soul and money into their business.
Perhaps, then, the solution is to do what Michael did? Create forums and discuss. It probably requires some people with a bit money to make it all possible, or perhaps it would work as each one bring one, but it’s one way to get the top producers around a table with the rest of the role-players. A saf(er) space, if you like.