UK police looking into Nigella Lawson throat-grab pictures
 
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Pendock Uncorked

South Africa's leading independent drinks commentator…
 

Blood sucking vampires or a valuable marketing resource?

Posted: February 23rd, 2011 | By Neil Pendock


With the Old Mutual Trophy Wine Show and Top 100 SA Wines washing their dirty laundry in public, producers must be enjoying this behind the scenes glimpse of the show industry which makes orders of magnitude more money for show owners than making wine does for them. It is not a pretty sight.

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While Trophy accuses Top of plagiarism, what is amazing is the overlap of judges between the events. Top panel chairman Tim Atkin has done time as a Trophy judge as has Sam Harrop while Cathy van Zyl was a Trophy judge last year and is a Top this year. All three are MWs, part of a gang who seem to operate like bounty hunters in the Wild West. Although after displaying an impressive negative correlation of -0.77 with Trophy owner Michael Fridjhon earlier this year at the controversial Chenin Challenge, she must be a doubtful starter for Trophy judge this year.

Of course consistency is of little import to SA wine show judges as Trophy Christian Eedes will confirm when he dished out a measly two Platter stars to a Mischa Merlot that the Michelangelo International Wine Awards lauded double gold. But then Mischa was tasted sighted for Platter.

I hear that when the Mischa 2008 Shiraz was tasted blind at the Wine Cellar in Observatory last week, assembled pundits couldn’t tell it apart from the Rhône blends of M. Chapoutier. What a difference a view of a label makes!

But at the end of the day, SA wine gets the competitions its deserves and big name winemakers have been conspicuously silent thus far. With the honorable exception of a leading Paarl winemaker who won’t be entering Tops after comment on the show was dismissed as “Beano comic antics” in a passionate e-mail to producers.

  
 
 

Comments

 

Guy Kedian

February 23, 2011 at 3:40 pm

well sais (again) Mr. Pendock. What we really need is a wine show/comp run by the producers without the stigma of a fridjhon or whomever to muddy the waters. I’ll work on that….just as soon as I solve the middle east peace thing…

 

Christian Eedes

February 23, 2011 at 8:56 pm

Hi Neil, For the record, I rated Mischa Merlot 2009 2.5 Stars in Platter’s 2011, the equivalent of “good everyday drinking”. If the Michelangelo Wine Awards panel reckoned the wine was worthy of “double gold”, then good luck to them, although such a rating would imply it was world class and with respect to Mischa, I think that most sensible observers would consider this excessively flattering. I’ve never had anything to do with this competition, so I’m not sure were the inconsistency comes in.

 

Chris

February 24, 2011 at 1:22 pm

Competitions are a marketing tool and producers can choose to take their chances on trying to get the most out of them. But consumers need to be better informed on what the results really represent. A few more of my (rambling) thoughts on this here: http://winethegap.com/wine-com.....charities/

 

Peter

February 24, 2011 at 6:49 pm

To Chris. The title Top 100 SA Wines sounds rather authorative and consumers are encouraged by the title to believe that the results represent the Top 100 SA Wines and not just the Top 100 from the limited number of suppliers who entered. As always caveat emptor.

 

Chris

February 24, 2011 at 7:49 pm

Hi Peter,
Yes I fully agree, as I mentioned in the blog posting.
Cheers.

 

Claudine

June 4, 2012 at 12:24 pm

FOR THE GREAT BRITISH APARTHEID BLOOD-SUCKING VAMPIRES:

The Great British Apartheid Illuminatti Power Abusing BIG Boys and Girls of Crimes against Humanity.

The 10 Commandments – God’s Revelation in the Old Testament
The 10 Commandments are found in the Bible’s Old Testament at Exodus, Chapter 20. They were given directly by God to the people of Israel at Mount Sinai after He had delivered them from slavery in Egypt:

“And God spoke all these words, saying: ‘I am the LORD your God…

ONE: ‘You shall have no other gods before Me.’

TWO: ‘You shall not make for yourself a carved image–any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth.’
[ Do NOT build statues of beings, especially the evil ones. It is also a sheer waste of money too. ]

THREE: ‘You shall not take the name of the LORD your God in vain.’
[ re your 39 Articles & racist Church of England & Prestbytarian Churches, for example, as I have also experienced, and still see, ongoing. ]

FOUR: ‘Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy.’

FIVE: ‘Honor your father and your mother.’
[ But, Some ‘parents’ & children, ‘doctors’, especially evil lying psychiatrists, ‘politicians’, majority of ‘lawyers’, ‘judges’, ‘psychologists’, indoctrinatory lecturers such as, at Oxford & Cambridge, are British Apartheidly vulgar, abusive and evil
and the British authorities teach children to mistreat their parents and teachers,
if they are decent ]

SIX: ‘You shall not murder.’

SEVEN: ‘You shall not commit adultery.’

EIGHT: ‘You shall not steal.’

NINE: ‘You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor.’

TEN: ‘You shall not covet your neighbour’s house; you shall not covet your neighbour’s wife, nor his male servant, nor his female servant, nor his ox, nor his donkey, nor anything that is your neighbour’s.’

The 10 Commandments – Christ’s Summation in the New Testament
About 1,400 years later, the 10 Commandments were summed up in the New Testament at Matthew 22, when Jesus was confronted by the religious “experts”of the day:

“Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the Law?” Jesus replied: ” ‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbour as yourself.’ All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments” (Matthew 22:36-40).

Little Britain said we have to learn the Holy Bible, yet it does not, similarly it’s Greatly evil, bribed, biased, medieval, corrupt Judiciary, Laws & Practices are to be applied on us, decent, innocent and vulnerable victims, but not on their evil selves??

They censor the TRUTH & FACTS from being published, but not their propaganda, pornography & scams, because they own and control the publishing and media outlets too, with wealth stolen and accumulated from South Africa’s Minority owners thereof, for their criminal selves, families and their satannic Empire only.

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  • About

    Called "South Africa's most influential wine writer" by DrinksBiz (NZ), a "wijngoeroe" and "beminnelijk maar snoeihard" 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 Paardeberg 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.