While the SCC winner to be announced at lunch will get a well deserved pat on the back, the problem with a competition producers have to enter is highlighted by the remarkable achievement of Alex Dale’s Vinum Africa Chenin Blanc 2006 in the USA. While columnists in financial newspapers may have a credibility gap deeper than the Grand Canyon at the minute, that Dorothy J. Gaiter and John Brecher voted the VA the Wall Street Journal’s third most thrilling wine for 2008 is remarkable. At all of $11 a bottle, it is a value for money champion when you consider the price of the other two wines on the winner’s podium: Château Latour 2005 ($1950) and Charles Heidsieck Blanc de Millénaires 95 ($90).

As Alex Dale told Uncorked: “we never enter competitions, so no, none of our four different Chenins were submitted [to the SCC]. Notwithstanding that, we are certainly a Chenin specialist with almost a third of our turn-over now coming from sales of this South Africa’s most premium white grape…!

By the way, the WSJ doesn’t accept samples; their write-ups are based through the year on wines that they have physically bought in retail -or tasted in restaurants.” With Gaiter and Brecher weighing in against “cynical wines” defined as “wines that are truly designed to take advantage of America’s – and the world’s – increasing interest in wine by selling marketing gimmicks and industrial plonk” exporters interested in making progress in the US market should consider the example of Alex and his thrilling VA.