Judges' feedback - The Investec Trophy Wine Show

This took place in May at Grande Roche in Paarl. It was well attended and, as usual, informative
The feedback is not about who won, that will come later, but what the judges found in the categories they tasted
There were three overseas judges this year

We recorded the meeting and the recording has been transcribed digitally

We apologise for any inaccuracies caused by the software, which does not understand many of the spoken words, especially wine terms

 - also any mistakes we made in translating the inaccuracies

This article is long
In order to make it more user friendly, we have edited out some comments that we thought were relatively unimportant

The Grande Roche conference centre

A glass of Phisantekraal Cap Classique to get the day started

and some fancy canapés to get the juices flowing

This was avocado mousse on crisp seed crackers, topped with cheese and herbs

A smiling, if somewhat tired Michael Fridjhon, after three solid days of tasting and invigilating, began the session

Winemakers, media, and interested parties attended
and Michael had some thanks to convey to those standing at the back of the room

  "Lined up at the back of the room are the unsung heroes who are going to be summoned to you now. It's the team from Grand Roche, Andrea, Tyrone, Frida, Leighton, Teagan, Suzanne, Deshay, Trevor, Danai, Koti and Trevor again. All you guys have been amazing. It has been a long, hard series of days and very demanding panels, which is what we expect, and you have responded to I'd like to thank also Ashley, Duane, and Tumaleng who, I think, do it in their sleep - actually, partly because they work very long hours, and secondly, I think it comes back to haunt them, So thank you all very much indeed"

"Thank you to Alex Mason Gordon, to Michael Crossley, to Monica Mountjoy and to Janice Fridjhon, the team that makes the team work. And that is really. Part of what happens here arises from efficiencies and those efficiencies are really immaculate and much appreciated

  Thank you (in the absence of management from Grand Roche) to the Grand Roche. We've come back here; we missed a few years around Covid, but it really does feel like home and it's wonderful to be able to taste and work and live in this space and that's a pretty cool thing to be doing"

This year’s panel comprises international experts Tom Carson (Yabby Lake, Australia), Michel Bettane (France) and Tamlyn Currin (JancisRobinson.com, UK). Both Tom and Michel have judged previously at The Trophy Wine Show

  The South African panel of super-noses and palates comprises Heidi Duminy CWM, Christian Eedes, Eben February, Malu Lambert, Mandla Patson Mathonsi, James Pietersen and JD Pretorius

Feedback from Michael:

"We have more gold medals this year on average than we've had in the past, not more than we've ever ever had, but relative to the number of entries. Something which we think we've seen - which is that the top wines are percolating upwards, that the good commercial stays good commercial, and we're finding this kind of gap in the middle and that's both interesting and, I think, challenging in terms of the industry.

  We have a spread of scores, we have the trophy judging which has just been held, where everything that comes forward comes forward with a gold medal, but the panellists are allowed to bomb their colleagues. So if you think that a wine really shouldn't have got to the trophy judging, you could score a zero against it, and if that wine were the solitary gold in that class, it couldn't win the trophy. It's never happened that that's thrown a wine out of a trophy but this year we did have a couple of wines that on average were disapproved of by the majority of the panel looking at them afterwards.

  I think that's really an interesting sense of one of the most important things about the show, which is that though it's collegial, decisions are arrived at by way of discussion and agreement, it doesn't mean that everyone is unanimous in what they do, and that's very important and also quite exciting. We had what looked at first like fewer museum class trophy winners.  In the end, it was a pretty much average run, same number of museums, but what we did notice, and I call for the score, was that the museum class wines on average scored higher than the current entry, the current availability wines.

  At one level that's what you'd expect, that wines with a little bit of bottle age should be better, more complex, more appealing. But it does remind us as an industry that sometimes I think we drink our wines too young and the wines that have had a chance to evolve and go somewhere; we're seeing those figures.

  One of the observations, just to pick on the point you've made in the classes where we have the most gold medals, we have the highest number of non-medals and there's this polarization.

  We're seeing that the single exception to that is Chenin Blanc. The number of non-medals in Chenin Blanc is exactly the same as the number of gold metals. So there's this huge concentration in the very middle of really smart, decent wine, medal-worthy all the way up. Whereas the ratio of non-medals to gold is four to five times in those three classes.

  And that includes Chardonnay, it includes Shiraz, it includes Sauvingon Blanc, amazingly. We will talk about how we do it, and it includes Bordeaux blends and Cabernet. So the single exception to that rule is just how that middle ground has been achieved by Chenin blanc. 

Tamlyn Currin: "They were brutal, they threw the whole lot in, muddled them up, and we had to work our way through it".

  Some really interesting features for the first time in many years: a Merlot Trophy. That's really encouraging because those of you who attend this feedback session have heard on almost an annual basis the moans and groans about how we're not doing Merlot properly. This new planting material with more thoughtful winemaking and the results have percolated to the surface.

  I'm not sure whether I can unpack the idea of weak and strong classes and that will come out in discussion. There are classes that garner many gold medals, that's not just a function of the size of entries but the fact that they are classes that the industry does very well. It doesn't mean that they're perfect classes and it also means that the judges, in a sense, are more tolerant of a spread of styles. So when you see a Shiraz class with four or five golds or a Chardonnay class with four or five golds, what it's telling you is not only that it's a strong class but there are different ways of interpreting those varieties and that's very important....

   We discovered really early on, back in 1994, that what the international judges had to say was so important, that it kind of broke the echo chamber that the industry had been so comfortable in, in that era of isolation. And we're a long way past that now, at least 30 years since.

   We have international judges, some of whom are here for the first time, some have done it a few times before. We have an extraordinary array of judges. I sat there in the judging rooms looking at how senior judges who've been doing this on and off for anything from 5 to 15 years, engaged with the wines and engaged with each other. In that sense we're a different kind of echo chamber.

   But it is really important and it always amazes me that the industry doesn't recognize that this opportunity, this one to one and a half hours of talking to people who are absolutely cutting-edge palettes and have a vision of a much wider wine world.

   Thank you for engagement, for discussion, for asking the probing questions, not for this kind of feel-good wrap-up to three weeks of judging. So please make the most of that opportunity as well. 

  OK, just some very  basic stats - slightly more entries than last year but 25% more gold medals. Big count, almost identical on Silvers and slightly higher up on Bronzes but not significantly so. What is most interesting is that the Gold medal spread is across many classes, suggesting for the first time in many years that we are doing more than just one or two varieties very well indeed and more niche variety gold medals than we've ever had. Niche white, niche red, interesting blends, lots of things happening which make me feel good about how the industry is making its way forward in the 21st Century....

   Just some stats about the reds. Bordeaux blends and Cabernet, since the one is kind of attached to the other. Both classes of around 60 wines, in fact both 59. Both had two golds out of 59 entries and in the case of Cab, 20 non-medals and in the case of Bordeaux blends 11 non-medals but 39 bronzes. And one of the questions is the vintages we've seen from 21 to 25 which everyone is so excited about. Not great vintages for Cabernet and it's not surprising the paucity of gold given the lines.

A Question to Michael:
Is it correct to say that the Bordeaux class is the best performing class that you have judged this year?

  Absolutely not. We have had years when it's been like that, but it's certainly been a difficult class. In fact, the really nice thing about this year is that there were no really, really crummy classes. We had two or three very strong classes. But that section there - they all had medals, which is rare, and that's one of the reasons why the gold medal count is up this year is that classes were previously for two or three years.

  We haven't seen, necessarily, a Pinotage gold, a Merlot gold, a Rhône blend gold. Those are the wines that came in and helped. But it is interesting that the border varieties were a smaller proportion of the red wine golds    

Eben February, South African Judge

National sales manager at the Great Heart Wine Company, Franschhoek, with a career in the hospitality industry that began in 2012 as a wine tutor at Delaire Graff Estate in Stellenbosch. Holder of three Cape Wine Academy qualifications, including the Introduction into Wine, the Certificate Course and Wines of the World. Manager of the Jordan Estate tasting room for seven years before moving to Mullineux & Leeu Family Wines as manager of the wine studio from 2021 to 2023. Graduate of the Michael Fridjhon Wine Judging Academy in 2018, currently studying WSET Level 3. Associate judge at the Trophy Wine Show in 2018, 2022 and 2023, and judge since 2024.

Feedback from Eben. "For me, saying as a judge for the second time, it's actually it's great because the international judges have a lot of experience that they're bringing towards the table and seeing Michel judging, it was an excellent experience for me. I learned quite a lot how we judge the wine compared with the international judges, which played a big role. There were some valid points that they brought up in the discussions. So we would rate it very highly because we found it very full. We enjoyed the wine's style because we are South Africans. They did not like it that much.

  There was a good discussion about the wine; why we enjoy the style and why they didnt. We learned a lot.. And there was some valid feedback that some Associate judges brought. They pulled out some high in silver, some gold and there was a good discussion about the wine. All the groups that we met, the first wines were a bit challenging, to be honest. We did Cabernet Sauvignon and everyone thought that Cabernet was going to be a great class and it's been.   Our Bordeaux blends can be a great class. There's going to be lots of medals, but it turned out to be very challenging looking at the vintages, I mean 2022 & 2023, if I'm correct .. but the wines that we did bring up were super elegant, showed beautiful complexity, beautiful structure and that's what we brought up to medals category.

James Pietersen, South African judge

CEO of Wine Cellar Fine Wine Cellar in Cape Town. More than 25 years’ experience in the wine industry, from wine buying, sales manager to sommelier. Graduated with distinction at the Michael Fridjhon Wine Judging Academy in 2007 and attended the Advanced Wine Judging Academy in 2014. More than 19 years of judging experience at various wine competitions, including panel chair for the Standard Bank Chenin Blanc Challenge, panellist for Winemag.co.za, and roving chair for Platter’s South African Wine Guide. First judged at The Trophy Wine Show in 2008 and on 11 occasions since.

  "Pinotage entry, there were 31 wines, 1 gold, 10 silvers, 15 bronzes, 5 medals. Go back five years there would have been 20 out of the medals and one or two silvers. It's great to be able to talk about Pinotage in its hundredth year. We need to look at more refined interpretation of the variety. Obviously it's only 100 years old, so the journey's only just begun; it's great to be able to talk about Pinotage at one hundred.

  I've done quite a few  panels in the past and it has become a really exciting panel to sit on this year. We had a lot of fun. I think previously I've been on that panel, I think with Heidi and a few other of my colleagues. Generally it's wonderfully complex in that we are finding out a way. Michel was on the panel with me and he said, "But you guys must decide ... what does Pinotage look like? What is the shape of the wine?"

  What I do like of this year's selection that the wines are a little bit more reined in. We're seeing less and less of that big box and sweeter style. I do think it's a legitimate style, a little bit of a Riojaesque, kind of shaped to the wines sort of sweetness. But what is really beautiful is that the tannins in Pinotage set  it apart.

  Then it's got the parentage of Cinsaut and Pinot Noir, both very fruit forward varieties.  So the fruit needs to be put into the box, even a bit of shape. So we've seen beautiful shape in Pinotage. And I think the gold being pulled up is a wine that is clearly a Pinotage. It's got all the elements: floral, it's got a little of that banana loaf on top, but it doesn't hide its tannins and it is got nice joiners and nice bite at the back. And I'm really looking forward to where we're going to go with it. It's a variety that I think is crucial to the South African story.

  Every person who visits South Africa is going to want to drink Chenin Blanc and Pinotage. So the better we  produce the wine, the better we are at talking to the wine, the better we are at bringing it into our culture, understanding how to use it, the way to drink it, what to do with it. I think the better for all of us because I think it's a legitimate variety and it's got a distinct tannin structure.

   It's in a different place from Cabernet Sauvignon, Nebbiolo, Pinot Noir, Cinsault and that kind of tannin structure, that dryness, that's got a little bit of personality that needs to be celebrated. So I am quite excited about the variety. I think it is morphing,  it is trying all kinds of different dresses. It's trying to find a different shape, a different way to dance. And we're all part of that journey and I think we should celebrate it. I think the story and the language around it is what we need to develop. And this is probably the one variety where we can very easily get to what does a South African wine look like? Is it gonna be the greatest red wine in the world? Who knows? 500 years from now?  

Question from Lynne, which she asks annually re the Pinot Noir Class, answered by James: 

  "We've got some esteemed Pinot makers in the room as well. Pinot noir continues to be a challenge. It could be the sample size we are looking at, but I think, Pinot noir is obviously quite delicate grape variety. It's crucial that it has the right home in place where it's planted vineyards, clonal material, so the first part of that story almost has not been answered yet. So before we can have the right viticulture, we still have to find a place. So there's quite a bit of a journey in terms of place. We've got one area that's really developing nicely, but the vineyards have been replanted a few times. Its clonal material is starting to be established, and the vineyard ages are only now starting to go over that 15, 20 year period.  It's a slow growth varietal, and the expectations and benchmarks internationally are extremely high. We also have (the fact that) a wine that's got Pinot noir on the label has got so much expectation.

  "So it almost that it is ready to fail. Unlike Merlot, where people drink it light and juicy and they go for it all - and Shiraz. Pinot noir has a lot of expectations and I think it's a real work in progress. It seems that we're saying that all the time, but baby steps. There are a few that are amazing in the country, but there are very few of them. And that those should those be the leaders in terms of the class we look at here? It's tough - there's, there's a lot of issues there unfortunately 

Lynne: James, are they entering the good wines? 

"There were 20 entries. No gold and the majority of wines without medals".

Christian Eedes, South African judge

A wine writer since 2000 and currently editor of Winemag.co.za. Completed a small-scale winemaking programme run by Stellenbosch University’s Department of Viticulture and Oenology. A graduate of the inaugural Michael Fridjhon Wine Judging Academy in 2007 and the Advanced Wine Judging Academy in 2014. Experience includes judging for various local and international competitions. Has judged at the Trophy Wine Show fourteen times since inception.

A question from Jaqueline Lehoud: 

"In terms of the Panel. I'm interested to know because there are a number of members of the panel that have been on the Panel for a number of years and yes, there are so many faces. But is this a good or bad thing in terms of a sameness of a panel. Does it lead to good consistency when judging or does it lead to a little bit of sameness and not allowing newbies to be recognised as such?"

Michael responded: "Its just a great question because we do rotate the panels we've got. I mean we could work with the same panel Year in Year out because we know the ones that are good, solid, reliable. We also have to build capacity. We also have to change panel dynamics. So, in fact, I'm going to throw this question at your colleague Christian, who's back here this year after an absence of a few years. Was that good for you? As in, was it interesting to see how things have changed? And do you feel that there's a different dynamic as a result, Christian?

  It was great having Malu on board and the Associates. There was a lot of debate about stylistics, particularly in the case of Syrah, they were what you might term hits, the ones like very thick  and very whole bunch driven. And Tom made a memorable remark that "you can't make budget wine of out of Syrah", to which Malu countered, "Well, that's the kind of wine I want to drink when she goes out to a wine bar in Cape Town". And I think somewhere in between lies the truth. And that's why  one reason why you need a multi generational panel. 

  Point No. 2 I don't necessarily want to have to test 60 Cabs in a day every year for the rest of my life, it's physically immensely exhausting. And you know at some point in the more in the future I just want to drink the really good stuff while I'm working through 60 wines. I don't entirely agree with Michael. If I might just say I think to say Bordeaux blends and Cabinet are very bottom end is extremely concerning. And I'm not saying they would categorically the worst on show, but we've got strategic issues. I mean  they demand a premium in the marketplace and those ones are very problematic  Michael asked me what did I notice this time around having not judged for two or three years?   As I said, it's a strategic issue. Why are our cab and Cab based Blends looking the way they are? 

Tamlyn Currin responded to the question:

What impressed me most is how much discussion. So when there were differences of opinion, everybody's opinion, even the associate judges I found on the panels that I was on, everyone's opinion was actually given equal weight. Even though we say, you know, "The thing is that the associate judges scores are not counted".

  Their opinions were very carefully listened to. And yeah, there were some Bolshie people in the room with all of them, but but actually the quieter people were listened to and so I think there was a sense of different perspectives being taken on board and I didn't feel that it was very echo chambery.

Michel Bettane (France), International judge

France’s leading wine critic. From 1982 and for over two decades he was editor and editor-in-chief of France’s most important consumer wine publication, La Revue du Vin de France. Started Bettane et Desseauve in 2004 for the purpose of wine guides, articles, books, exhibitions and wine experiences in Paris, Hong Kong, Shanghai and Beijing. He co-writes Le Classement des Meilleurs Vins de France and has a regular column in The World of Fine Wine. Professor at the L’Academie du Vin de France from 1977 to 1989 and member of L’Academie Internationale du Vin. Credited with coining the term “vin de garage” and its winemakers “garagistes”. After wine, he is passionate about classical music. Trophy Wine Show judge in 2004, 2009 and 2016.

  Feedback from Michel: I like very much this competition because it's one of the very few where you can share your judgment with the other judges. We can share your experiment, we can share your love, your hate sometimes. Even if for a judge to love or to hate is not exactly what we are wanting, expecting for a good judge. With the age, because it's a privilege of age, and more than 50 vintages in my memory everywhere in the world, I would say that the wines belongs not to nations.

  The good wines belong to humanity, but first they belong to the soil, to the place, to the light, to the weather, to the microclimates. And they belong to the dreams of the people who want to make wines in these places. You have to dream and to build the wine of your place, not of your nation. You can have many styles, you can have endless discussions about what is the right ripeness. What is important is the idea and the winemaker, the owner of the property is making the wine where the vines are planted.

  And it's not my first trophy, it's my third one. And in 20 years, it's shown that a lot of improvements were made in the wine industry. I'm very happy to be able to understand that, to feel the sense of improvement. As for the medals, the trophies, the relationships, in every country, in every place, you have average wine, dull wine, very good wine, excellent wine, worldwide wines.   In smaller countries because it's like that, it's impossible to have perfection everywhere. And what is very important is to have the sense of perhaps what is needed by the place and not by the consumer. We have also to educate the consumer. It's not only the immediate taste of the consumer. My immediate taste when I was young was not good at all. Not good at all, I can tell you. And there is a place for improvements for many people. 

What is very important is to follow the change of time, the change of habits of eating. The cooking now is not the same as 40 years ago, what we are eating, what we are... It's not the same. It's normal that in 40 years you have evolution, more freshness, more... It's like that. I'm very happy to see that happening here, with people who love to eat, who love to be together, keep these qualities, which are the friendship, the love to be friendly with many people, to be generous, to have a very generous hospitality and I was very proud to be for the third time member of the judge panel

A Question to Michel:

You have said that we need to educate the consumer, Which is a message that kind of flies in the face of almost every every other retail industry that's going to listen to the consumer so. How do we educate the public?

  Michel: It's like any education. Discussion about taste is the beginning of civilization. When people are saying “There is no discussion, each people have there own taste and it's like that!” It is the beginning of Barbarism. You know, discussion about tastes is the beginning of civilization, sharing the experiment. We are all different genetically, all different and the sense of taste is genetically linked to each patrimony. It's normal, but it's a social part of life to have more things in common, you know. And in matter of wine you have the notion of balance, which is very important, which is the most important feature for a good wine is not only because it's a good drink and you prefer to drink wine to any other drink, because this for the future is a problem. Why to drink wine and not to drink soda or doing orange juice is because it's your choice and your choice is your choice. But you can have and with the age and with the experiment at the beginning, we love when we drink not very often the wines. We love to have very hard sensation, you know, very immediate one. We want to tell something. And then when you are, you are, you drink wines every day and you have you have a smoother taste, you prefer things which are more complex and it's normal. But it's your taste. We have to educate you to have a better appreciation of your own taste. Not All. We have to understand you and to say even by education you can make improvements into your own direction.

Tamlyn Currin (UK), International Judge

Sustainability editor of and staff writer for JancisRobinson.com. Fortnum & Mason Drinks Writer of the Year in 2024. She has a particular interest in all matters sustainable, food-and-wine pairing, beverages other than wine and artisan producers. Every year she pores over dozens of wine books, reviewing them with respect for the time and sacrifice it takes to write a book and with ruthless attention to detail. Her great loves are wines off the beaten track, Eastern Europe, Languedoc and Roussillon, and German wine. She adores vermouth and cocktails with a bitter twist. Negroni is her brunch drink, if Bloody Mary isn’t on tap. She’ll eat anything – at least once. She shone at the WSET Diploma exams and is a particular stickler for detail and consistency. If you don’t like metaphors, steer clear of her tasting notes.

  Feedback from Tamlyn:" I was lucky enough to start on the Chenin panel and it really is something that is very special to South Africa. The quality across the board is high, across all the different styles, from fresh, light, entry level, all the way up to even the quite rich oak styles, maybe some with a little bit of residual sugar. On the whole, South Africa seems to have got an incredible handle on Chenin.

  And likewise the second day with Chardonnay, I found the same thing. I think if I was going to have a message about all of this, there's questions that are being asked throughout the time, but it's the comparison with France and South Africans have to just drop that comparison. You make South African wine, embrace your climate, embrace your soils, embrace your fruit, but also it's a national personality. You are pretty open people, you are direct. I've heard about it too. That's an essence for South Africa. There's a lovely kind of, you know, kind of feet on the ground openness and I can taste that in the wines. So I think stop talking about whether your Chenin is like Loire's Chenin. It's not.  And all the better for that, it's not to say Loire's Chenin are worse, it is not about the comparison. France does French wine beautifully, you guys just do South African wine beautifully. And I think it was the same with tasting the MCC class,  this is sparkling wine that's in a completely different style and it's unique to South Africa, lean into that. 

Tom Carson (Australia), International judge

Yabby Lake General Manager and Chief Winemaker, he also holds several wine-judging roles including his current post as Chairman of the Royal Melbourne Wine Awards. Previously, the youngest Chairman to preside at The National Wine Show in Canberra, and over the years he has judged at a number of capital city and regional shows as well as serving on the Qantas Wine Panel from 2004 until 2015.

  I think the thing that struck me most was, I suppose coming from Australia which is the home of Shiraz, is the improvement in Shiraz.  For us, there is half the country is planted to Shiraz, the home of Shiraz. And we have the oldest farms in the world dating back to the 1840s. So Shiraz is big. Everyone in Australia could name a Shiraz. And I've judged here in 2005 and 2013 and I can't remember being particularly impressed with the Shiraz back then. And in fact I think we struggled to get gold.

  We had numerous golds in the Shiraz class in fact, it was the strongest red class in the show in terms of gold medals given. Not that I'm trying to give away the results but it was very strong and we saw that in the trophy line up. And what struck me about the wines was you know, the vibrancy and the intensity you have in Shiraz. These really beautifully handled red fruit wines, florals, beautiful colours, medium body to slightly full body, a new style that's developing in South Africa, which was eerily similar to some of the cool climate Shiraz in Australia.

  So maybe defying the heat of some of the regions you've got with very smart viticulture and really thoughtful winemaking, not overdone. I hardly had over-oaked wine all week, which is something that is important. The handling of oak plays a big role in wine, but we don't need to see it from three kilometers away, it needs to sit in the wine. Then you know the Shirazes were really compelling, really interesting so that was something that I thought was you know a real development.

  I think across the board in the trophy lineup I'm seeing much more purity and finesse and elegance in the wines. That is one of the things; I think probably at the bottom end of the reds there's still a lot of red wines that have been just hanging on the vine for way too long. I don't know what you're trying to achieve with them but you know, pick them a bit earlier. They're sort of big clunky brown looking wines at very young ages and (if) they're not appealing to the judges, they're not appealing to consumers I would assume. People pick up wine, they pick it off the shelf and they're drinking it these days They're not looking to sit something in the cellar forever. So balance and vibrancy and varietal correctness is really important. And the best wines in the show certainly showed that. 

  Chardonnay, I mean I was blown away by the Chenins. Chardonnay is a very strong variety in Australia so I have particularly high standards with Chardonnay and I think there were some good wines there but there's still a lot of room to improve there. There's a lot of room to improve. People are getting the picking a little bit less right. I mean, it's fine to make big textured, full-bodied Chardonnay. That is certainly part of the style, but there is a place for more coiled, more tight, more minerally, more complex wines and I think there's a lack of somebody having a bit of a go going out there and going a bit further, the wines are a little bit safe and I think you can do more with Chardonnay. I think you can work on some cooler sites, I think you can work on your phenolics and your use of oak, your wild ferments, make some really interesting complex wines.   You can see the fruits there but the winemaking needs to be bolder. I think it's “a bit safer with Chardonnay, I'm a bit afraid to go out of all my consumers, that's what they like, that's our style”. You know what, (if) you make great wine, people will come and buy. You cannot make assumptions about your consumers, you need to continue to make the best wine you possibly can and keep pushing yourself, so don't be lying. Shiraz has come a long way, I think Chardonnay can do the same.

Question to Tom" You mentioned Varietal Correctness? 

In the Cabernet class... at the bottom end of the class, I could have been judging any red wine class. There was no varietal character in the wines that have been stripped out of them by I don't know how, but mainly over-ripeness and just leaving the fruit out there for too long and not picking it when it has it's some vibrancy. So I think there's two ways to look at it. When you're judging a varietal class, you're looking for varietal character and then complexity on top of that. In blended classes, you're trying to use the best of each variety to contribute to that.

  But if you're not picking the variety at a time when it's expressing its true nature, then you're not achieving the best result for the wine.  I think that something important is freshness in wine. It doesn't mean early picking, you know it. It means picking grapes when they're perfectly ripe, they have a balance between four components, flavour, phenolics, sugar and acid, and you're growing grapes on a good site.

  Those four components all work to a similar time zone. If your viticulture is good, you can pick grapes that have this inherent vibrancy and balance and that comes through to the wine. You don't need to adjust so much if you've got those four elements in a nice little space. And that is what a good wine is when you have the right variety on the right soil, in the right microclimate, and you're picking grapes that have this vibrancy and intensity.

   If you're got some of those components out of whack, then you lose the vibrancy of the wine. And I think wine, young red wine should have a very good colour. That is the first thing. And a lot of the wines suffer from poor colour at 18 months old, you know, browning already. So there's something lost, there is character that is gone, it is oxidised, it is never coming back. So picking and then very thoughtful wine making is important.

  You know we talk about terroir, but terroir includes the winery and the people that are making the wine. They're not. The wine maker is not the most important thing, but he can be if he does it wrong because his stamp will be bigger than anything else. Because I'm tasting the wine and I'm “Where is the character in this one? Where is the sense of place?” It's not there because the job was done poorly.

  So you have to have everybody working in sync. You have to have the better culture really, right. You have to have an understanding of your site and when to pick your grapes. And then you must have a vision, as Michel said, a dream. What is this one? What should it be? How do I bring it to life?

  And so it's, you know, two years of work to get and produce a great bottle of wine, Vineyard & Winery, working in sync. And I think the best wines are the wines that leap out of the glass. They have beautiful colours, they have aromas. And, you know, sometimes you don't need to taste. You can smell it and go, this is an absolutely brilliant one. And if it backs up on the palate, which I'm sure it will, by the look of it and the smell of it, you're there, you know, so I think they're the ones I'm looking for. I'm not looking for flat unbridalled nondescript red wine. Anybody can produce that.

Heidi Duminy CWM, South African Judge

Cape Wine Master and principal of the Cape Wine Academy. Formerly communications manager for DGB, brand manager for Veuve Clicquot and Krug, as well as trade marketing manager of the LVMH portfolio of Champagnes and spirits. Wine marketing specialist and group marketing manager for Meridian Holdings. Distinction graduate of the Michael Fridjhon Wine Judging Academy in 2011 and Advanced Wine Judging Academy attendee in 2014. Convener of the judging for the Amorim Cap Classique Challenge since 2017 and the Diner’s Club Winemaker of the Year panel in 2020. Sparkling wine judge at the Veritas Awards since 2011. Associate judge at The Trophy Wine Show in 2012, 2014 and 2015, and judge since 2016.

Michael passed the question on "What was the Point of education?" to Heidi Duminy, Head of the Cape Wine Acadamy where she gives her life to Education. "What do you think of the question, are consumers becoming elitist and more sophisticated and the question about capacity and capacity building? 

  I am in what I consider to be a super, super privileged position because I'm brought in the day before the sparkling wine panel to lead that. And for me that's a massive privilege. Also because the sparkling category is different, judging bubbles is different.

  You have to adjust your palate perception as soon as you introduce a bubble into wine and a lot of very, very proficient judges in still wine don't quite get the nuance of sparkling wine, particularly if you haven't seen the greater picture in progression of the category. So this is something that I really do feel completely privileged to be able to do and it's another way of not limiting the local judging pool to just six judges where it's shared. And we really are working so hard on trying to incubate sparkling wine palates in order to, with the Cap Classique Academy and in partnership with the Cap Classique Producers Association to build a wider pool are bubbly judging experts. So this I think that that's also a little kind of strategy that was brought in. I think that works for mutual credibility, specifically for Cap Classique. 

  In terms of education, yes, I'm so super passionate about education. I don't believe you have to learn about wine to appreciate wine, but it certainly helps and it certainly helps to be introduced to it. It's not something you discover just by chance. It is something that we totally have to work on with our new consumers in South Africa. It's not even new consumers. It's a market that is interested, is curious, is showing signs of really wanting to elevate their knowledge because of the curiosity and because of the social and cultural advantage it gives you at a dinner party.

  And in cases where we all socialise and in terms of connection, I really, really do believe that education should be for anyone who learns about wine should be able to learn about wine in their own terms and be where they are unapologetically. So the intimidation factor is tricky for me because it's not a case of this whole thing about wine snobbery and protecting wine snobbery and elitism and, and that because wine is where you are, you just have to have the place where you can learn more if you're curious.

JD Pretorius, South African judge

Cellarmaster at Warwick Wine Estate in Stellenbosch since 2019, current vice-chairman of the Cape Winemakers Guild. Distinction graduate of the Michael Fridjhon Wine Judging Academy in 2010. Regular judge at The Trophy Wine show and panel member for various South African wine competitions. BSc. Viticulture and Oenology, Stellenbosch University.

  Michael: I'm going to another class that turned out to be controversial and that is Sauvignon Blanc. It's interesting that our two non-museum class golds were for ones that had oak as part of them, and it is a feature we've seen over the last few years. So I'd like you just to say what you think has been happening with whether you think it's essential that oak is part of the deal or just that we are not seeing the wines that we should be. 

  JD: It was a little bit of a challenging class to begin with. Predominantly, 2024 was a hot vintage. The great thing about the show is that we had 67 wines. It's all we did for the day, and they were, half of them were poured when we walked into the room, we broke,  then reset, other half  were poured

  So you can look at the wine. You can see the ones that shine bright, the ones that shine green that haven't had a luminosity about them. There are very few that had that. They were brown, they were yellow. And, it's basic stuff. Yes, it was a hot vintage. You might be working with high pH's, but it is basic.wine making. So that first step was a little concerning.

  And it was the same in the Cabernets and the Bordeauxs. Specifically on Sauvignon blancs, what I find really interesting and  judging it with Tom is we would score a wind down for being slightly herbal and have a high acid. And you would go, why? That's how it's supposed to be like! So I wonder to what extent we as winemakers in the local industry have not fallen into the trap and trying to move away from the fact that it is super aromatic and acidic and right to me. Where in essence, that is what it will always be, and that is what its DNA is.

  So great to have somebody with a vast experience internationally, but specifically from a, from a wine making technical point view. That's something we need to pay attention to from a producer point of view

  Sauvignon blanc is where most varieties start with zero and the more things you do right, you end up with the highest score out of a hundred. Sauvignon blancs, the inverse, you start with a hundred and the less things you do wrong, it's you end up with a highest score. So it is all about great fruit to begin with and then protecting it in the cellar. Now the majority is in an unwooded class. 

  With the wooded class, I think people are approaching it with more of an almost a Bordeaux white mindset. It's getting treated differently. It's generally speaking, that those sites have been better defined. They know which ones work with oak, which ones have the capacity to handle the oak, also a much smaller class, but they are more defined and more unique and more set up from the start versus a kind of blanket approach than big volume unwooded stuff. I think the wooded are as a class stronger than the unwooded and, and it's growing and it's interesting.

  I don't know what the commercial value to that is yet, but it's great that we've got the option. I don't think it would be growing if it wasn't commercially viable. So I think that is great as its showing what the variety can do; there's a wide spread of styles, there's great character differences in the whites, but it's just to get them technically sound.

A comment from Tamlyn: 

Ten days ago I was, tasting, a whole day of New Zealand Sauvignon blancs. And although I wasn't on the panel, I was tasting Sauvignon blanc for the trophies. I think you guys are way ahead of New Zealand. You have more elegance. There's just more nuance, there's more elegance, better balance. It's not just all about big shouty brash fruit. We basically tasted about a hundred NZ Sauvignon blancs and every one tasted the same. I think you have something potentially very exciting here.

  If there's focus on the vineyard and stripping back to the purity of the fruit. Also with your wooded some are being done really, really nicely.

  Michel: 

May I say one word about all to get your question? All these discussions; you are discussing, you are discussing about the varieties, but the 100% variety is not civilization to have a great.

  So to have a great Sauvignon, you need perhaps 5%, 10%, 15% of other thing. It is like an actor, you know, when you are big, great actor, you need lesser one just before you to show why you are so, so good, uh, to miss to, to, to be, uh, okay. It's very important that, and to understand. He's not understand the style, he is, understand the place, right, of Michael, but also the origin of the variety.

  Sauvignon is a very special variety. The origin of not very well known because some people they, it's in, in the Spain, in South of France, in others is valid. But in the blood now we have the genetic, we are beginning to understand really what is a variety. Because we are able to trace the genetic elements, the Sauvignon... and the winemaker has to understand the genetic elements in the Sauvignon, uh, is a category, uh, linked to, to, uh, Sauvignon and others where the, the perfume up in the skins and the perfume depends on the rest.

  Bon, Okay, well, they can change and you have to understand that the, the, the way you. The Sauvignon is not the way you have to crush the Chardonnay, which is completely different is, and it's because of that, that you have so many differences in many places. Uh, some countries were very proud about the new style of Sauvignon,

  For instance, because it was spectacular, this aroma. But there are aromas of under ripeness, you know, because the, the weather, the light is too hot sometimes too, too long. It's very complex, the, the, the history. And I am very happy that now you are beginning to understand that the validity is linked to the place.

  You are not only one South African, but 20 South Africans, 40 South Africans, 100 South African wines. All different because of the place and also because of the possibility to blend and ensure that the semillon and the sauvignon, ah, is really a blend which is suited to many places in South Africa. 

Michael: Merci Michel. Jac has been holding on patiently.

Yeah. Just to expand on Sauvignon blanc, I'm very interested to know about the blend, the subset blend, uh, although commercially challenged, how did they, say, usually really enjoy it?

  James: It's a small category, it's a strong category. I think traditionally it does extremely well in South Africa. We have some of the most kind of compelling white wines from that category. Wines that we know can last eight to 10 years and plus, and again, it's a small growth, got two Golds out of a relatively small pool.

  Again, I'm going back to the whole thing. We need to really make people understand. Sommeliers, if there are any Somms in the room here. It's not a drinking wine. This is a wine that really works at the table. It's not one of those wines that a consumer buys it off the shelf and he sits on his porch and he looks at something, so it's not a drinking wine. This is a wine that really works at the table, and it's got a, it's got a job to do and we need to communicate that. But again, the super strong category. I'm glad we still make them and I think we must make more of them and they're compelling and we have to teach people to put them away.

  I sat next to an Investec client last night and she couldn't understand. She was blown away that we had this mature wine that's seven years old. She went like, I didn't know that white wine can become this old. And she was blown away. She loved the wine, loved the wine. It was her favourite wine of the evening.

  And that's what needs to happen. So there's lots of work to be done, everybody. 

  Michael: And talk about Bordeaux wines, I'm just gonna add a stat to that one. In the Sauvignon blanc unwooded class, there were 40 entries and four wines. That was silver or gold. So 10% in the stem blend class, uh, 50% of the wines were still gold. Where's the microphone?

Jonno from the floor:

  It's a slight change of topic, but it's riffing off a comment you made about, uh, cultivars and blends and regions. there's a, I guess, a style that I'm finding quite exciting, which is the emerged or emerging Swartland red blend, which is this mix of weird history that connects Portugal and Spain and France.

  And I just wondered if, if you had managed to taste some of those wines in that category and okay, so not, but maybe into the panel. Is this class a distinct class that is worth exploring and talking about? Uh, or am I imagining it? 

Michael:

It's an emerging class. It's the first year I'm gonna find... who chaired the Rhône blend class. Tom, right. Well, it got to gold. 

Tom:

Yeah. Well these, these were mainly, you know, Shiraz based blends. It was strong. Are you talking about those, or you were talking more about Touriga, but also Shiraz. Yeah, we didn't do that, but we did work. One was good. 

  JD: Can I jump in there? so we had, uh, so called Rhône blends, of the two Golds, one was a 60/40 Syrah Mourvedre and the other was a multi variety all Rhône blend, including Roussanne and Vognier. So to your question, I think that, uh, and I'm picking up what Michel's saying is, we have to carry on, experimenting and exploring in terms of what varieties go together and not be bound by the rest of the world. I always chuckle that, you know, SMV or SMG is termed a Rhône blend where they would never occur in the Rhône. So,  the one caveat I would make is that, very often those blends are whatever's left in the cellar, and you can see that. They need to be made with real intention.

Mandla Patson Mathonsi, South African Judge

National brand ambassador for Beck Family Estates – The House of Graham Beck in Robertson and Steenberg Vineyards on the Constantia wine route. Recipient of the Eat Out Wine Service Award in 2014. Head sommelier at the DW11-13 restaurant in Johannesburg and sales representative at the Reciprocal Wine Company from 2015 to 2018. Completed the Cape Wine Academy Certificate Course as well as WSET Levels 1, 2 and 3. A member of the Hugues Lepin Sommelier and Wine Academy. Graduate of the Michael Fridjhon Wine Judging Academy in 2016. Associate judge at The Trophy Wine Show from 2016 to 2018 and judge since 2019.

  I think sense of place is very important. I was privileged enough to actually judge sparkling with Heidi, as always. I think this is my second time, actually, this year judging with Heidi. I'm very passionate about Cap Classique and sense of place is very, very important.
  And I'd just like to add on top of what Tamlyn said, in terms of talking about South African wines, instead of benchmarking ourselves with the French wines, Champagne, its so very important because the consumer out there is always comparing Cap Classique with Champagne. But if you look at it, Champagne is quite cold climate, whereas we have a bit of cool climate, but we've got sunshine. So our Cap Classiques are a lot brighter and we're starting to see our Cap Classiques a lot more refined, which was really, really amazing this year. We actually got a little bit more Cap Classiques compared to last year, I think it was 4 more Cap Classiques. And now the colour difference was really, really amazing. And even the silvers that we pulled, the golds that we pulled, you can literally walk into the room and look at the colour and you'll be like, "I'm really very impressed", so we're starting to actually see a lot more improvement on the Cap Classiques, which is really amazing. But I was also privileged enough to to judge Merlot, which is always a difficult class. And it was actually the first class that I judged this year. On Monday, I walked into the room, here were 10 Merlots put in front of us before the white wines, and I actually love tasting red wines before white ones because of the acidity factor. Whenever we are judging Merlot as judges, we're looking for for those sophisticated Merlots, with purity, little bit polished, at tannins. But the consumer out there is looking for something totally different because Merlot in South Africa is considered cheap. A consumer walks into into a retail store, it's almost like Rosé, it's one of those, a commercial wine. But we are starting to see a lot more serious Merlot of which we managed to pull a gold this year, which is very impressive. We are looking forward to seeing what it is. So thank you.

Malu Lambert, South African Judge

Multi award winning wine writer and critic Malu Lambert DipWSET writes for a variety of international and local publications. Won the title of the Mont Blanc Emerging Wine Writer of the Year at the Louis Roederer International Wine Writers’ Awards 2019 as well as that of the Veritas Young Wine Writer in 2015. As co-author of ‘Klein Constantia: The Home of Vin de Constance’ she was awarded the ‘Discovering and Presenting Wines’ category of the 2023 OIV. Most recently she was a finalist in the The Gusbourne Estate Award for Long-Form Writing category of the inaugural 67 Pall Mall Global Wine Communicator Awards. Writes for numerous South African titles and was the wine editor of Food & Home for five years. Internationally, she has also written for JancisRobinson.com, Decanter, The Buyer, Falstaff, Club Oenologique, Drinks International, Thirteen Barrels, The Japanese Times and more. A taster for Platter’s South African Wine Guide. A regular on South African wine judging panels, including Winemag.co.za and Wine-of-the-Month Club. She has also judged for Decanter, IWSC and Concours Mondial du Sauvignon. A Michael Fridjhon Wine Judging Academy alum. Associate judge at The Trophy Wine Show in 2022.

  This is my first year on the judging panel.  It's been a lot of fun. You kind of just get lost in this bubble of wine. I was very lucky in the fact that I got to taste with all three of the international judges and I found that really compelling because I got to see their point of view on our wines. We're so stuck in our bubble as local judges that it really is refreshing to get that outside point of view, a different perspective, and that's what these international judges bring. It was also just a real privilege to be in the room with them, to hear from Tamlyn, she's my favourite writer. It was just an honour to taste with her. Tom, brilliant, so precise, you cannot get a funky wine past him. And Michel, I've listened to all day.

  You just nailed this down the path of beauty with wine, and I really appreciate it.

In terms of the atmosphere in the room, it's super collegiate. We all have our discussions, we all have our points of view. Nobody must fence it. We don't like that. You either like a wine or you don't like a wine and you flag it and we discuss. So there's no middling, there's no averaging. There's "do you like it or don't you like it?" and why. So that's the part I enjoy the most. I enjoy the discussion, I enjoy learning from people. Re the associates, they're brilliant. (It takes) a long time to get onto the panel. I did three years as an associate.  We had amazing associates this year, just look at the talent that's up and coming, I'm excited.

Some final words from Michael on a different but important subject

  I wanted to wrap up something which may seem immaterial, but actually has been something we've focused on and we're, sadly, not seeing progress. But possibly too Soon.

  Jancis Robinson and Tamlyn, who works with Jancis, very focused on bottle weight, as indeed we should be, so from the 2023 show onwards, we have been weighing the bottles and we have looked to see whether there's any real progress in terms of moving towards lightweight bottles

  It's too soon in the sense that a lot of wines that were at the show were bottled before this became as much of an issue as it is now. But it is worth noting that using weights of 1201.25 kilograms fluid in so essentially 500 grammes as or less as lightweight,  up to 1450, so 1250 to 1450 is kind of mid-weight and over 1450 so 700 grammes and more just the bottle in 2025 versus 204 so in 24 we had nearly 15% in lightweight, this year only 12% were. In the heavyweight category in 2024 it was 26.6%, this year it's 29, so the really bothering statistic is we're not seeing more lightweight glass and, for what it's worth in the sample, we're seeing more heavyweight glass. The middle band is almost identical at 58% for both years. So I think there is a message there.  We know that the opportunity to get very elegant, light or lighter weight glass is now available. We've seen some really quite showy bottles that are definitely under 700 gram. But we did have a wine, I'm not sure if it's the heaviest wine on the show, but there was a bottle over a kilogram and I don't think there's a necessity, and I think that when you use the bottle to work for you there's a lack of confidence in what's inside it. I'd like to see that over time the industry plucks up enough courage to let the wine speak for itself.

And I'd Like To See that over time the industry plucks enough courage to let the wine speak for itself.

Ladies and gentlemen, thank you very much indeed for being here. I'm putting the call to this because we've run about 25 minutes over time. But no questions were wasted and I just want to say it's been the most extraordinary group of judges to work with that have been fabulous. The dynamic on the panels was everything and the joy of just meeting and chatting afterwards is a privilege which I really appreciate. Thank you all very much.

Janice Fridjhon, the Outsorceress, and Tarryn Vincent

Some lovely wines to quench our thirst after the long informative feedback session 

Lovely canapé filled with good duck liver mousse, topped with a raisin gel

Rare pink beef topped with gherkin and mustard

Zebra ladies and gentleman - Maryna Calow and  Alex Mason-Gordon with Mandla Matonsi and the Investec Zebra

Salmon blinis with a crème fraiche

Tiny bao buns filled with spicy Asian beef and onion

A dessert canapé with flaked coconut and some chocolate below that

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