If you haven’t noticed, it’s full-blown awards season in the wine industry. You can shake the proverbial stick and more than likely poke a winning winemaker’s eye out. Veritas, Michelangelo, Five Nations, Platter five stars, and even an amateur ‘five heart’ award has appeared. It’s all bat shit crazy if you ask me.

The latest award to be handed down sounds incredibly important. The Diner’s Club Winemaker of the Year. Winemaker of the year. Wow. THE WINEMAKER OF THE WHOLE FREAKING YEAR. That surely is the most important of them all, right? The awards event was held this weekend, and I was in Franschhoek for the big night. OK, that’s misleading. I made it sound as if I was simply strolling down the faux-French town’s faux-boulevard, in a stripy shirt counting the onions around my neck when I happened upon an awards ceremony. No. I was whisked there in a comfortable car and put up in a hotel all at Diner’s Club’s expense. No, I am not sure why I was afforded this courtesy. Yes, it was very nice. No, I don’t know why there weren’t any other wine media there. Yes, I totally would have preferred a ticket to the Swartland Revolution.

Attending the awards, I understood how an indie filmmaker must feel watching the Oscars. Out of all the wine events I have ever attended this was the most corporate. The one in which the specter of The Man loomed large, and while that specter hands out luxurious hotel rooms and party favours, it has a very hard time convincing anyone that wine is awesome. Let me back up a little and first explain how these awards are different from the others.

I overheard one winemaker championing the competition because it is the only one to award winemakers not wines. The competition functions like so: Each year a category is set for Winemaker of the Year, and Young Winemaker of the Year. This year it was unfortified dessert wines for the former, and dry reds for the later. There is no entry fee. The judging panel chooses the best wine from those submitted. The producer of the wine judged best wine is the Diners Club Wine Maker of the Year. The young winemaker category is open to winemakers under 30-years-old. There are solid prizes as well. The winemaker of the year gets two air tickets to a wine-producing country, plus a cheque for R50 000. The youngster receives R25 000 and the same trip.

If I were a winemaker, I would enter every freaking competition I could. Firstly because I know the results of blind tasting competitions are like the roll of a dice, and secondly winning stuff is awesome. I have nothing against the two winners. Who is going to begrudge Razvan Macici Nederburg’s cellar master and this year’s Winemaker of the year? No one. Neither will they question his winning wine, the Private Bin Eminence 2007. That wine kicks ass. The young winemaker of the year went to Anri Truter of Beyerskloof for their Diesel Pinotage 2010. Hard to fault that wine either.

I am not going into issues like how Beyerskloof’s website lists Anri’s dad, Beyers, as the winemaker, and wine.co.za lists Tariro Masayiti as the winemaker of the Eminence. I am not bothered about this. Producers know how this all works, and choose who to put forward for awards. I won’t fault either winner. Competitions are inherently silly, remember? I find this one even more so. Not because they celebrate winemakers, but because they do so based on a single wine. With today’s steady movement among critics and producers of fine wine toward terroir-centric exclamations and the litany of claims that “the foucs is in the vineyard” where the important work is apparently done, it feels somewhat gauche to all of a sudden start slapping the winemaker on the back because of one wine.

Let’s celebrate winemakers, but do it because of their skill over time, and contribution to the industry, not over a single bottle. But I can let this go. I did. I sat back and sipped the really wonderful Eminence 2007 from Nederberg, all apricot, raisins, tea leaves and fruit cake. It’s wine like this that got writers of yore all poetic, claiming it to be god’s nectar. I sipped it and let my cares about – in my opinion – the misleading name of the competition go. It’s all so silly anyway. Yet there was another niggle that I couldn’t quite shake. It’s a nebulous one. It’s nobody’s fault – the organisers did a very good job and the food from Peter Goffe-Wood was excellent – but it all felt like a corporation’s Christmas party. Over the last couple years I have met loads of winemakers and wine people. One thing has struck me. Many of them are, at heart, farmers. This is a compliment and in no way a pejorative. They love the land, and make a truly complex and interesting product from it. The winemakers award dinner was the antithesis of this. Like the indy filmmaker I mentioned earlier. I Imagine her sitting at the Oscars cursing the academy, the big studios and producers who care more about the bottom line than art; well I think I know how she feels. Like the indie film maker, I am not naive to think that either industry could survive without big money from millionaires, billionaires, banks, and The Man. Of course they couldn’t.

I realise quite clearly that the wine industry isn’t about hairy-toed hippies worshipping vines and eating humus. But when I taste great wine – not that often unfortunately – the last thing I think of is a winemaker, a brand, or a credit card. I think of the thing in and of itself. I think of its origins and its beauty. If we are to change the perception of wine drinkers as a club of pretentious old white-men, the Diners Club competition is not the way. Heck, even Ebrahim Matthews, Managing Director of Diners Club (SA), was apparently mistaken for a farm worker. Is this a fair criticism of Diner’s Club wine awards? Perhaps not. It’s a preference. It’s why I prefer Wes Anderson to Ridley Scott, The Decemberists to Linkin Park. Maybe I’ll just go and have a glass of weird skin contact Chenin now.