The “No Such Thing As Bad Wine” Myth Will Be The End Of Us

Here’s a wine column in two parts. The first is a response to a nagging complaint against people like myself, that we should be quiet about the huge amounts of people drinking truly atrocious wines, because, you know, so what. To balance it out, I will suggest some great bargain wines to drink as well.

A few days ago on twitter, “apprentice #winemaker, #Kanonkop tasting room casual, francophile #winelover” Riaan Smit started at me after I lolled at how that disastrous sparkling concoction, the KWV Cafe Culture Chocolate Mousse won a category at the recent 100 Women 100 Wines event.

I am not going to go into the competition sufficed to say that Clare Mack organizes an event where 100 “diverse . . . women of all creeds, colours, backgrounds and tastes in wine” get together, taste through a bunch of wines, and place them into categories. This sickly silly sweet sparkling wine won the “Celebration Category”. I truly feel for those whose celebration is dampened by such a wine.

I am not attacking the competition. I have tired from doing that. I just pointed out on twitter how I thought the wine winning anything was ridiculous. Then Riaan tweeted

“95% of people don’t drink “fine wine”. Popular is not necessarily bad. #getawinelife”

He followed up with:

“What’s good & bad is a sterile debate. Let’s rather focus on a spectrum of wine styles for vastly different tastes? #cheers”

Now Riaan is entitled to his opinion and taste, and if he thinks I have this all wrong the comments section below is all his. But this weird idea about not talking about good and bad wines is strange. I have heard it before, and I just don’t get it.

Why do we pussy-foot around good and bad wine? Why, when critics start saying how bad a wine is they are not met with thanks, or acknowledgement, but rather with the wet-fish response that “Oh come on, people must just drink what they like. So what if it’s kak, people love it, get off your high horse.”

People cheer when Gordon Ramsey rubbishes a restauranteur, they laugh with glee when Jeremy Clarkeson rips an automobile a new one because his giant frame can’t fit into it, and the knobs are too plasticky, and their faces light up when AA Gill cuts up a restaurant in a review so acerbic your mouth puckers.

Look, I am no Clarkeson, Gill, or Ramsey, that’s for sure. But when it comes to wine I am immediately accused of being a snob, or pretentious if I say it is awful and not fit any living breathing thing’s consumption.

I do not care how many people buy the KWV Cafe Culture Chocolate Mousse, or Two Oceans Quay 5 wines. I do not care if they are sold out all over this fine country, they still are, and will remain, very very kak wines. This is not simply personal taste. This is not me being pretentious. It is simple, unadulterated fact.

A Durban Rickshaw is fun and all, but it isn’t going to win car of the year. Just because millions eat McDonalds it doesn’t change the fact they serve processed, flavorless pieces of cardboard with sugar filled sauces. Come on people. There are such things as good and bad wines, and there is no harm in pointing this out.

But you know what pisses me off? This reply from Riaan when I ask why wine should be expempt from a good vs. bad debate:

@HarryReginald Wine not exempt. Problem is: 95% of drinkers have no interest in this debate. Who are you to pontificate to them?

What? Firstly I only pontificate to those happy to be pontificated to, dear chap. Close your browser now if you are unhappy.

But that’s not the issue. It’s these fake statistics people pull out all the time. Believing they have some sort of preternatural deep understanding of the South African wine drinking public, and believe – haughtily – that they can speak on behalf of them. Sorry to pick on you Riaan, you are not at all the only one.

Should I and other wine writers, because of these assumed 95% that seem hell-bent on drinking kak wine, quiet down, stop telling people which wines we think are good and bad? No.

Firstly, because I do not believe these made up statistics. Secondly, even if these fantasy stats are correct, and one of those in the 95% does read this column, and does taste and enjoy the wines I am about to suggest, then Riaan, all my pontificating is worth it. Because if I can get just one person to switch from frothy, ridiculous spoofy wine, to a fresh (and also sweet, by the way) delicious Riesling, then I have done something good. I do not fool myself into thinking this will change the world, but I am tired of people saying wine critics are useless because the people just like what they like. It’s simply not true.

Right. Onto some very good wines. Yesterday I was treated to the launch of Paul Cluver’s Woolworth range of wines. What happens at Woolworths is that Allan Mullins, Cape Wine Master and all round nice guy, works with farms to create blends and wines specifically for Woolworths.

In my opinion these are the best Paul Cluver Woolworths wines ever. And the best part is the price. Oh boy these prices are good.

The wines

Ferricrete Riesling 2012 (R69)

BUY THIS WINE. It’s fresh, bright, zingy and delicious. Some lemon and lime flavours, with a brilliantly balanced acidity. It’s in a sweeter style, and I could go through a whole bottle without even thinking. Everyone moans about locals wanting sweeter styled wines. Well, here you go. This is a kick-ass wine, and it’s sweet. For that price, it is ridiculous. I love it.

Limited Release Gewürztraminer 2012 (R59)

Typical floral nose. More genteel rose petals than full on Turkish delight. This is an aromatic wine, and again, for the price, an absolutely cracking deal.

Cabernet Franc Reserve (R79)

I sometimes dread tasting single variety South African Cab Franc. It can be too vegetal and green. Hard work at times. This one, however, totally charmed me. A wonderfully fragrant nose. It’s medium bodied, with bright red fruit, with a green side to it, but in a positive way. It’s an example of this variety that, while not the finest wine ever, is truly delicious. Which I think at times is more important than any score or stars.

Pinot Noir Reserve 2010 (R99)

A cherry-fruit driven Pinot. A good example, if perhaps not as complex at some others currently available. Look, if you want a decent Pinot and you are in Woolies, you really can’t go wrong here.

Hat-tip to Mr.Mullins, Ivan and the rest of the team at Woolworths wine. It is the supermarket to buy wine at.

Seriously though, GO BUY THAT RIESLING.

Kwispedoor

I agree with Riaan that popular is not necessarily bad. However, if you look at books (Mills & Boon’s, etc.), wine (commercial white Zin, etc.), music (boy bands, etc.), movies (Twilight, etc) – popularity is indeed often a very good indication of something that’s utterly crap. Of course, this is not always true: Led Zeppelin and Pink Floyd did manage to sell a few records in their time.
If good and bad is a sterile debate, then either nobody should ever discuss wine ever again or everyone should disengage their brains from their taste buds and retro-nasal passages when they drink/taste wine. It’s true though, that taste is a very personal experience and that there’s often no accounting for taste.
Unfortunately, in wine there is much snobbery, but also a whole lot of reverse snobbery…
http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=681661365 Anton Alo

Maybe this will come up in part 2, but could you provide a definition of a bad wine? a list of criteria about what qualifies as wine as bad?
http://twitter.com/WinetheGap Chris Bryant

I have a short(ish) comment on what is really a larger debate. As wine has grown and styles have developed to target a broader range of consumers, so the all-encompassing term ‘wine’ has lost appropriateness. When considering whether a wine is ‘good’ or ‘bad’ you need to look at what defines wine as different to other drinks, beyond purely the production method. If you drinking something because you want sickly sweet, one-dimensional booze there are plenty of other things to fill your glass with. If manufactured fermented grape juice with added grape concentrate and tartaric acid which has gone through the Soda Stream and has no semblance of balance or style is what you’re after, then that is fine – but don’t call it wine. The same goes for ott oak extract/chip flavoured coffee wines or wines that have been moered by so much technology post-fermentation that they could have come from anywhere.
Snobby winos who judge people based on what they drink is one thing, but as I read Harry’s article that is not at all what he’s getting at. You can drink whatever the hell you like and I have no problem with that. But that does not mean that all wines are good purely because they have a market.
Wine writers must get sick of generic, run of the mill wines that tick the basic boxes and whose PR agents or marketing people expect a raving review. So when a really great wine crosses their path they get excited about it. Why should the same not be true of a bottle of dross?
Harry

Thanks all for reading. (Also, weird time issues in this column exist because the idea for it was to come out last week. All the points stand nevertheless.)

@facebook-681661365:disqus I’d be happy to write a column on what I think defines good/great wine and what makes bad wine bad. Check back this Thursday

@twitter-17286169:disqus You get it. It’s not about the drinker, it’s about the drink. The frustration for me is that I only write about wine because I have tasted great wines that force me to believe wine is special. That it deserves all the words we can throw at them.

Similarly there is good and bad wine writing.

@c9ca0d2087db9942fbec6cb9f71302e4:disqus I think the correlation between popularity and whether something is good or bad is always going to be a tricky one. Especially tricky when the product is written about in ways that suggest it is an art (something I am changing my mind about with wine). There’s no place for snobbery, but there will always be allegations of it when people suggest one song/wine/novel/poem is better than another. For me the snob is one who drinks on label and price alone, and most times has no idea what is good or not.
dusan jelic

My dear brother-in-wine Harry nailed it again! His argument is a crystal clear proposition and as Chris stated ‘… that does not mean that all wines are good purely because they have a market.’. Kak wine is indeed a kak wine and no amount of marketing or fishy and dodgy verbal creations (fondly known as ‘verbal diarrhea’) or dumb and one-sided yet vigorous concoction of peculiar euphemisms, can change that. So thumbs up Reginald and keep up your sharp tongue alive… and better be ready for the virtual ambushes now and then… however your attitude is called integrity and I have no the slightest doubts that you will prevail… Warm regards from sunny Belgrade!
Herp Derp

I like to drink my own piss siphoned through an old pair of underwear to ensure the fruity, body notes are intertwined into the bouquet. Then whilst still in the barrel (my belly), I like to eat a bushel of asparagus as well as 2 cans of baked beans. 1) the asparagus ferments my urine in a way that really accents the subtle notes of pencil shavings and ox blood. 2) the beans ensure that while I may look the part of a pretentious pseudo-wine-connoisseur, I can also smell my own wonderful farts to ensure everyone around knows it too. Then when I’m talking about how bad global warming is while trying to scam companies by lying to them about my “media empire” everyone will know that I’m a tool too! How fabulous! I wait on the edge of my seat for the next section of this article such that I might read your drivel whilst touching myself and drinking my own favourite beverage!!
vinnicola

Of course there are good and bad wines and of course they should be discussed! And just because a wine is poor doesn’t mean you won’t like it and just because it’s good doesn’t mean you will like it. Same with art, writing, music, etc. Art critics, for example, are educated to understand what is good art and what is not. I have no idea, I just know if I like it or not. In the same way, many people are educated or have experience to assess what makes a good wine and what a bad wine (this is exactly what WSET courses do) but either way, it doesn’t necessarily make the wine likeable to everyone. I could easily assess a wine to be of good quality but not to my taste, or not a particularly good wine but will do fine with a braai or at a party after you’ve had the good wines!
http://twitter.com/MattBlackZA Matt Black

Harry, while Riaan may have a point ( weak point I will only understand if quite drunk), the fact remains that there exist a large number of people like me, who, in a rather horrifying realisation have little to no understanding of wine.
I know that wine comes in bottles or boxes and wine is white, red or something complicated called “pink.” I do not know what is a good or bad wine. I look to advisors, pontiffs or, lets be brave, experts, to recommend what wine I should buy if the in-laws are coming round or if I am invited to a dinner party at a friends place.
From various wine writers writing about the cheaper area of wine, I have discovered that as a general rule, sweet white wine is for aunties at Christmas to get drunk on, semi-sweet is for students and dry is what you ask for at the business function when beer is unavailable and you don’t want to look like the ignorant git in front of your girlfriends company CEO.
This weekend I will go and buy a bottle of Ferricrete Riesling. I have no idea where to get it (Bottle store is a start, but Jozi is hardly wine country), but it is affordable and your description of it makes me want to drink it. A lot of it.

My point being that wine writers exist to service ignorant people like me who need a rough guide of what to buy for the big do coming up and for wine connoisseurs who can both understand and digest the array of flavours that wine writers seem to express. Keep writing. Write about peasant wine for people like me. Pontificate about delicious wine. Sods to Riaan.
http://WebsiteURL Harry Haddon

Spot on. First off, you can only get the Riesling at Woolworths. If you don’t like it, I will personally buy you something that you do.

Check back later this week for how I work out if a wine is good or not.

I really am glad, I mean heart-cockle warmingly glad, that there are people like you who, while not having a life consuming obsession with wine, find ways to drink better wines. I mean that ever so sincerely. I promise to write a column next week dedicated to you, to fill out a little your very accurate Sweet/semi-sweet/dry categories.

Thanks for reading.
ello

Just a different angle – I am no wine connoiseur, but I can usually tell a really good wine from a really kak one – the main thing though is that I don’t give a shit if the wine is good or bad – I drink them all with the same amount of pleasure.
Kwispedoor

“Ello, Matt. Give the bottle store a skip – only Woolies sells that particular label. Most of the smaller Woolworth stores probably won’t have it. Your best bet would be to try a pretty big Woolworths like the one at Eastgate or save yourself the driving around and ask them at IvanOertle@woolworths.co.za to tell you which stores stock it. I’m guessing it’s probably not too far off the 2012 Paul Cluver Close Encounter Riesling that I tasted last week. If so, it’ll be money well spent!
http://WebsiteURL Harry Haddon

Yup, similar to Close Encounters. The woollies riesling is around 20g/l RS and the Close Encounters is around 30 if I remember correctly.

(Bonus: Makro as a deal at the moment 1 bottle Close Encounters Riesling plus 1 bottle standard Paul Cluver Riesling for R150 in a gift pack)
Riaan Smit

I obviously annoyed you and you needed to vent. Good for you. At least we got some sort of debate going.

This debate is not really about “good wine” or “bad wine” or taste relativism. This is
ultimately about how we communicate about wine to ordinary wine drinkers.

Incidentally, the headline of your column incorrectly paints me with the “No Such Thing As Bad Wine” brush. That is not what I said. Neither can it be read into my tweets, unless you are disingenuous.

I do not deny there are criteria for what constitute good and bad in wine.

My concern is that these criteria can so easily be defined in such a way that ordinary wine drinkers simply do not understand what you are talking about. That is why I called it a sterile debate.

These wine drinkers do not have the vocabulary to understand most wine writing. In all
likelihood, they will never acquire it. And why should they? They do not aspire to be geeky about wine.

They drink wine because they simply enjoy the taste of wine, because their friends drink wine, because it is fashionable, because it is an aspirational drink, etc. The same reasons
they pick certain clothes, cars, food, etc.

A further problem is, even if you sort out criteria for “good” and “bad” these criteria will
differ from wine writer to wine writer, leaving the ordinary wine drinkers to figure out how to calibrate each wine writer with their taste. A taste they struggle to verbalise in the first place. It can not be reasonably expected from them.

So, what pisses me off is the disdain most wine writers show for ordinary wine drinkers without even realizing they are disdainful. A copy of a recent speech by Andrew Jefford, “Source/The Wine Writer is dead” at http://www.andrewjefford.com/blog/1,
should be laminated and hung around their necks.

You are prissy about where I get the “95%” from, or my pretention to know what the South African public wants. I don’t, but I have spent almost every Saturday morning for the
last two years in the tasting room at Kanonkop. By far the majority of the people I serve here are not knowledgeable about wine.

But I am constantly amazed about the thirst for knowledge among these visitors. And it
makes me angry that wine writers do not make and effort to write for most of these people.

I get asked most Saturdays – in different ways – what is a good and what is a bad wine. My answer: There are criteria for what is a good wine and what is a bad wine, but
get away from the notion of wine as simply “good” or “bad”. As said above, even
the so called experts do not agree on “good” or “bad”.

I try to explain to these wine drinkers to rather build a picture in their mind of a spectrum of wine styles. I try to briefly explain about sweetness in wine as opposed to dryer styles of wine – how the acidity is more accentuated in dryer styles of wine; how sweetness affects the feeling in their mouths. I try to explain tannins (Kanonkop only makes red wine apart from a dry Pinotage Rose) because I sense a lot of these wine drinkers are a bit put off by “bitterness” caused by tannins. I try and encourage them to taste for a balance in wine between acidity, fruit, and tannins. And a couple of other basic things we do not have to go into.

In short, I try to make these ordinary wine drinkers feel comfortable with wine; to not be
intimidated by wine; to taste for a couple of basic things and not to over analyse.

Hopefully, if they get over the general intimidating bullshit around wine, they may take a
bigger interest, they may drink more, and more adventurously – to the ultimate
benefit of our industry.
Riaan Smit

Another frame of reference to wine appreciation – Matt Kramer in Wine Spectator http://www.winespectator.com/webfeature/show/id/47703
http://www.facebook.com/esti.louw Esti Louw

Tayler Swift and Justen Bieber are the most popular icons in Pop music at the moment and Twilight has had millions queuing for a seat. Popular is NOT always BEST… Just saying…