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 Leading up to this event is a process that begins in May when well over 900 producers of wine, sherry-style wine, brandy and husk spirit in Platter’s database are invited to enter their products for review- a theoretical total of more than 8 000 individual labels.
The pace picks up towards the end of June when the team of tasters is mobilized, and reaches its apogee for the tasters and logistics team at the end of August, when the Wines of the Year tasting is held to select the top performers. It’s not over for the publisher, editor, associate editors, fact checker, proof readers and layout specialist, however - they must endure another month of long days and lost weekends fine-tuning the text and verifying the myriad details the Guide contains: vintages, varieties, blend proportions, wine styles, lees ageing, vinification and maturation details; the list is a long one.
The results of the tasters’ work make up the bulk of the guide, with producers and their products listed in an A-Z directory.
Each winery entry comprises three parts:
· an introduction or ‘news’ piece overview that briefly puts the winery in context for the reader who is unfamiliar with the South African wine scene, and update of developments since the last edition, along with any future plans;
· details about who owns the winery, who is the winemaker, the viticulturist, cellar door opening hours etc;
· listing and description of its wines.
The maps are fully updated, along with the quick-lookup tables which furnish key visitor information about the wineries of a particular area, such as whether or not they are open on weekends and public holidays, offer meals or refreshments, specifically cater for children, or are friendly to individuals with reduced mobility. For visitors in search of wine-route information, GPS coordinates are incorporated for the wineries open to the public at set hours or by appointment.
Priding itself on its inclusiveness, Platter’s ranking system covers the full spectrum, from wines considered ‘somewhat less than ordinary’ (and award 0 stars, equivalent to 50–59 on the 100-point scale) to ‘superlative South African classics’, worthy of full 5 stars (95-100 points).
With such a short window to source so many wines, sort taste and rate them, and then edit their notes into a publishable form, each producer or winery’s wines are allocated to just one taster/reviewer. The only exception are wines from new producers, or producers who have been absent from the Guide for one reason or another for one edition or more. Such wines are rated by two tasters who must agree on a common score.
The Guide also keeps to a strict workflow, simplified here:
· Wines, brandies etc (two bottles per label) are received at a central venue where they are checked against the previous edition, to ensure continuity from one guide to the next.
· Once the logistics team is satisfied that the expected wines and vintages have been received and that the paperwork (technical analysis and pricing detail) is in order, the front labels are photographed and the paperwork scanned.
· The wines and paperwork are then delivered to their assigned taster, who tastes them sighted, rates them and uploads the tasting notes and scores into the database, which is accessed through an intranet.
· At the same time, writers (usually also tasters) are busy composing the winery overview paragraph and the information coordinator is checking the contact details.
· Once the wines have been tasted, the paperwork is delivered to the person responsible for categorising the wines according to variety or style. This is an important task because the category determines the sequence in which wines are listed, and makes it possible to produce the Rating Summary, a separate section (very useful for conducting research, selecting wines for tastings etc), in which all the products in the database are listed by style/variety and star rating.
· The paperwork is then sent to the editor, who edits the introduction and notes, and sends off the entry to be proof-read.
· Finally, the paperwork is sent to the fact checker to verify that the information held on paper exactly matches that in the database; again an important task because it not only ensures the integrity of the current edition but also prepares the system for the next season of tasting.
Once all the wines have been tasted and rated (the deadline is usually the first week of August), wineries with wines achieving 4½ stars (90+ points) are entered into the Wines of the Year tasting.
The wines which emerge from the Wines of the Year tasting with ratings of 95-100 points are awarded the maximum five stars.
The top scorers in this elite group are then subjected to a further evaluation to determine the Red, White and Dessert Wine of the Year.
The labels which are rated 94 points, and thus do not make the five star cut, clearly are extremely fine in their own right, and that fact is duly recognised in their being accorded the lofty status of the year’s Highly Recommended wines.
For the 2017 Guide, 720 wines were tasted blind (without sight of the label) by seven panels (21 tasters) over two days
It is worth noting that – unlike a competition – wineries are not charged to enter their wines in Platter’s, regardless of the number of wines they submit. Further, as mentioned above, tasting is conducted sighted, with the exception of the Wines of the Year Tasting where the wines are judged blind.
Sighted tasting has been the preferred approach since the inception of the guide, and its scores are the considered opinion of wine experts who understand the responsibility of adducing a star rating to a product as changeable as wine.
Understanding what producers intend to achieve is far more difficult when wines are assessed blind, because then perforce you are assessing only the organoleptic qualities of what's in the glass.
Since Platter’s tasters understand the intention of the winery, they can assess how successfully the intent manifests in the glass. The more they know about the sites, the soils, the winemaking and the philosophy of the winery, the better they can assess the final product in terms of character, style and quality – and tell the reader about it.
Another reason for sighted tasting is that the guide aspires responsibly to track the performance of the wines under review over successive vintages, to consider them against one another and to highlight those vintages which are particularly successful (and ones that are less so).
This is why it includes, for wines scoring 4 stars and above, a ‘general’ or ‘track record’ rating in the left margin plus a ‘vintage specific’ rating, if applicable, in brackets beside the particular vintage in the wine description.
Despite its efforts to rate a wine within context (winemaker intention, style, vintage etc), because of the subjective element associated with wine assessment, Platter’s strongly recommends its readers view its rankings as adjuncts to the tasting notes rather than as oracular pronouncements. And urges them to ‘trust your own palate’.
Cathy Van Zyl MW
Beyond doubt, Platter’s is THE Wine Guide to follow for South Africa wines and the industry and producers, winemakers, restaurateurs and wine connoisseurs await the ratings-especially in the 5-star category. Cathy started her wine journey on a bicycle: she asked her husband Philip to ride South Africa’s famous Cape Town Cycle Tour with her; he accepted if she attended a wine course with him.She has since notched up many more Cycle Tours and became South Africa’s first Master of Wine. She judges locally and internationally and is the current chair of the Institute of Masters of Wine’s education committee. She contributes occasionally to wine journals and websites around the world including delWine but spends most of her wine-time as Associate Editor of Platter’s Wine Guide-editor |