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If you do not accept the Platonic ideal of a “best” wine, are wine competitions any use? Last winter the Good Value Guru and I plumbed the depths of deepest Franschhoek to beard Gottfried Mocke and Werner Muller in their lair at Chamonix. Our thoughts on their wines from page 72 of The Good Value Guru Diaries 2010 (Cuspidor Press, 2010): “Gottfried Mocke and Werner Muller are quietly Trojan horsing the estate’s famous Pinot Noir with a totally Burgundian Pinotage. The 2007 has been made like an Italian Amarone any don would enjoy and, indeed, half the production has been snapped up by The Wine Society in the UK.”

Werner Muller and Gottfried Mocke

Werner Muller and Gottfried Mocke

So it comes as no surprise that the European palates of the 2010 Santam Classic Trophy Wine competition awarded the only Pinotage gold medal to the Chamonix Greywacke 2007. Which supplies one use for these competitions for the non-Platonic – to flag wines of character you might otherwise miss.

Werner the Winner

Werner the Winner

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Comments

 

Kwispedoor

March 10, 2010 at 5:21 pm

Chamonix makes kick-*** wine! I tasted their Pinotage at last year’s WineX orgy and loved it. Upon inspection, I found that Platter’s awarded their Pinotage (admittedly an older vintage) only two and a half stars. In the 2010 Platter, it’s been upgraded to ***. Still a bit low, if you ask me.

 

Kwispedoor

March 10, 2010 at 5:22 pm

Ah – I see I also received three stars (for “a s s”)…

 

Affieplaas

March 11, 2010 at 9:15 am

Live by The Platter and die a most unsatisfied life drinking over-opinionated wines. Don’t get all rubbed up the wrong way, most, if not all 5 Star wines are quite-pretty damn fine, but so too are some less starred wines, as proven above. Do a little more exploring, be a bit adventurous in your regular wine buying and trust your tastebuds, as most folk can read (well hopefully, one never knows with our education system).

 

Kwispedoor

March 11, 2010 at 9:37 am

I agree, but unless my budget explode, it’s literally impossible to be more adventurous in my wine buying. It’s also impossible to do any more exploring, unless I marry a sugar mommy that can support me while I spend even more time on wine. The only reasons I have a Platter’s is for information and to sometimes compare my ratings to theirs.

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  • About

    Called "South Africa's most influential wine writer" by DrinksBiz, a "wijngoeroe" by De Telegraaf, a "Master of SA Writing" by Ernst Gouws and voted “most trusted palate” by readers of WINE magazine, Neil Pendock is South Africa’s leading Indie drinks commentator.

    An "enthusiastic amateur", he owns a small farm on the Paarderg which used to supply a few grapes to Swartland Winery, a producer he never wrote about. After two decades in the spittoon, he retains a healthy disregard for the anoraks, bowties and Emperors of drink and their new clothes.
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