A most generous review of The People’s Guide on page 48-49 of The Ridge, a lifestyle magazine “for the people of the Umhlanga coast” from an unlikely source: John and Erica Platter, dynamic pioneers of SA wine guides.

How ironic then, that this review appears as a promising new producer pulls out of Platter after receiving a sighted savaging from the wife of the current Platter editor on her blog. Confirming that the sighted paradigm used by Platter is perceived (in many quarters) as being deeply unfair and prejudicial to the many new producers struggling to get their brand names up in red ink and to those producers relegated to outer Siberia (and I’m not talking of the GT Ferreira/Gyles Webb operation in the Hemel-en-Aarde Valley, either). Gyles and GT are awash in red ink already and GT is my bet for SWOTY: Sighted Winery Of The Year 2011.

Disclosure: the author is a co-author of The People’s Guide and is in a grumpy mood this morning.