Well our terroir ♥♥♥♥♥ treffers (hits) from Neil Pendock’s Winelands Guide 2013 list sure shot out the lights and encouraged a few trolls out of their sewers. The version on www.winenews.co.za was the most popular story of the week while the heat and light it generated will probably help sales of Platter, the sighted competition, which has been looking a little tired of late. How ironic is that?

But it’s all good news for consumers and producers and encouraging debate on rating methodologies is certainly needed as amazingly few consumers (and even fewer sponsors, it appears) know that Platter is tasted sighted. But the big winners of the week are obscure wine brands like Esona, Mimosa, Arendsig and Windfall to pick four Robertson rock stars at random.

As sighted palates are invariably couch bound and dazzled by marketing bling, blind tastings organized by the various wine routes are a breath of fresh air in the cellar, blowing away cobwebs and preconceptions. Could Aníbal (below) be tasting the ♥♥♥♥♥ Bellpost Shiraz 2008? – who knows, as all tastings were scrupulously blind.

Four wineries had four ♥♥♥♥♥ wines: Fairview, Rietvallei, Rust en Vrede and Thelema with only the former fingered by Platter. But then Charles Back is the smartest marketer in the business and his wines rock – heck, he single handedly invented the Swartland Revolution that extends way beyond the usual hairy suspects – past Annexkloof and Pulpit Rock – as we discovered.

At the end of the day, to those haters and trolls who rubbished our list without bothering to taste the wines – which you can do when you assess sighted – we offer a glass of Eagle’s Cliff Pinot Grigio 2012. But then for trolls, it’s not about wine and never has been.