Yesterday’s Sidebar in the Sunday Times on the Swartland Revolution appeared with impeccable timing with a Platter editor addressing the opening act on Grape “I doubt if you’ve stepped into the Swartland in the past decade” thereby leveling a charge of cultural carpetbagism of the worst kind. The Revolution starts with a bang!

Perhaps the greatest achievement of France is the assumption that French fashion is the chicest, French perfumes the most soigné, French food the most sophisticated and French wine the most full of finesse, “whatever that may mean”, as Prince Charles said to Diana on the subject of love.

Nowhere is this Francophilia as well developed as in the Winelands. When WOSA (Wines of South Africa, the exporters’ mouthpiece) presented “South Africa’s exceptional red blends” to the US Society of Wine Educators conference in July, the line-up of eight reds, selected by their ominously named “wine selection protocol committee”, was three Rhône-style, three Bordeaux-style, one Italian-style and one Uncle Tom Cobbley. But not a drop of Pinotage and thus no Cape blends. Just as well then that ABSA has announced a Cape Blend competition with reds containing between 30% and 75% Pinotage qualified to enter.

French should be the conference language when the keynote address is entitled “New Zealand: the France of the New World.” There is also a bonus session entitled “Is wine better than sex?” somewhat unsportingly described in the program as “non-tasting” and of course Frenchmen do consider themselves the world’s best lovers.

In an illuminating video of the comments of the judging panel on the best performers in the recent Global Trading Shiraz Challenge, the highest form of praise was comparison to the Rhône. When French Champagne producers took legal steps to protect their brand name, SA bubbly producers settled for Méthode Cap Classique (the very name a faux-French neologism) even though the pioneer of SA sparkling wine, Frans Malan, offered them his much more authentic Kaapse Vonkel.

Once again local bubbly boys seem to have seriously shot themselves in the foot by importing two Champenoise to judge the Amorim cork MCC Challenge. Two fizzy Frenchies hated the ripe fruit flavours and relatively low acidities of local MCC; with hindsight, only to be expected, as MCC is a serious competitor to Champagne in the new Age of Austerity for most consumers except the ANC Youth League.

Burgundy is the paradigm for SA Pinot Noir and the Loire for Chenin Blanc. Santam even sponsor a local wine competition judged exclusively by French-speaking judges who sniff out “classic style” wines in the same way that sows snuffle truffles in Europe.

But is everything hunky-dory in the dizzy milieu of French hedonism? This year’s San Pellegrino tabulation of the world’s top fifty restaurants includes not a single French address in the top ten. When I mentioned this to Willem Kool, the Gwen Gill of Dutch newspaper De Telegraaf, he replied with amazement “of course, don’t you know that French cuisine is more useless than their soccer team?” Right on cue comes the publication of Michael Steinberger’s obituary for French cuisine Au Revoir to All That: The Rise and Fall of French Cuisine (Bloomsbury, 2010).

At the first Swartland Revolution in November, to be held in Riebeek-Kasteel, the keynote speaker is Stefan Ogier from Domaine Michel & Stéphane Ogier from Ampuis, France. Well he may be a “world-renowned producer of fine Rhône wine” but he’s not half as famous as Eben Sadie, Adi Badenhorst and Marc Kent, the Swartland Lenin, Castro and Che Guevara, respectively.

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