The Widow, gossip persona of Platter “editor” Tim James, is like Glenn Close in Fatal Attraction. Just when you think it’s all over and Michael Douglas has drowned her in the bath, she comes back to life, screaming with a kitchen knife. Tim’s intended victim this time is Clayton Reabow, Diners Club Young Winemaker of the Year and central figure in a scandal that stubbornly refuses to catch fire.

Clayton Reabow, savaged by The Widow

While some commentators get their panties in a bunch over the affair, my friend the winemaker points out there is not much enthusiasm “as there are no hard and fast rules as to when a wine is ‘made’ and most people will be happy with the explanation given by Diners Club (although there will of course be suspicion). Winemakers won’t rise to the bait as many of them are in a similar boat by buying in bulk wine and blending it into their own (or even bottling on its own) and selling it off as having come from ‘their’ farm/winery (and there’s nothing wrong or illegal with doing that).” By letting sleeping dogs lie, runner-up Pieter de Wet is behaving with admirable decorum and his stocks are rising.

Tim should come to more industry functions (admittedly tricky to do when you’re being dropped from media lists faster than celebrities are leaving the Church of Scientology) and he’d discover that his claim that Miles Mossop and Duncan Savage “haven’t actually been speaking to each other since the tale-telling and complaints around Diners Club last year” is malicious, actionable rubbish. My friend the other winemaker saw them chatting “for five minutes” earlier this month. And as for the “winewriter [who] seems to have been also implicated in trying to cause trouble for Duncan Savage” could Tim be referring to fellow Grape blogger Michael Fridjhon whose column on last year’s “scandal” evoked a response from Cape Point owner Sybrand van der Spuy? Spit it out, Tim! Likewise if he’s looking for winemakers under 30, I can introduce him to a couple who will give his middle-aged mates a run for their money: Julien Schaal and Donovan Rall.

Earlier this year, a producer told me “SA is the only country in the world where wine writers write about each other.” While not true (remember Robert Parker challenging Jancis Robinson to a “celebrity death match” and Malcolm Gluck contra mundi) it’s nonetheless a good sound bite. But not if it lets Tim or The Widow get away with murder.

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