Our weekly column in the City Press on Sunday pointed out the sillyness of calling SA Champagne-style wines, Méthode Cap Classique, as nobody knows how to accent an e these days and why use a French phrase when the French forbid us to call our fizz Champagne? Anura, the wine estate in Klapmuts, Paarl, has gone one better, naming their whole operation Anura which is the Latin order of frogs, the schoolboy slang name for the French.

So it was quite appropriate that their 2011 Frog Brut should be the overall winner of yesterday’s Amorim Cap Classique Challenge. So now we’ll have to work on an appropriate replacement for the term “brut” (“dry?”, ed.) and thank heavens it wasn’t a blanc de blanc that won the big prize. One of our 2 million City Press readers wrote a letter to the editor to agree with the objection to Methode Cap Classique but then asked why we refer to the Zimbabweans who blind taste our WellsFaber Sommelier Selection as “sommeliers.” Surely wine stewards?

The 12 Apostles pulled out all the stops with the hake from Hout Bay enhanced by a devilishly spicy Chourico sausage, confirming the invaluable contribution the Portuguese make to bubbly, in addition to corks.

There were several excellent jokes. The best came from John Platter who won a lifetime achievement commendation together with wife elegant Erica. Accepting the Frans Malan Award from grandson Francois, who was dressed in the most exquisite shirt until I squirted him with soy sauce from my tempura veggies, John recalled reading a decades old letter on Wednesday in which Frans noted “of course the Platters know nothing about wine.” John admitted it was true with a laugh.

Fortunately his successor on the wine rating wheeze, Platter editor Philip van Zyl, was not in the room or he’d have had a conniption. He already harranges winemakers who refuse to appear in the wine label guide for 90 minutes by phone and has been known to smash Alexander Graham Bell’s invention in frustration. Of course when your winning bubbly is a frog, the Platters are quite at home as the Platanna is the African clawed-toe frog.

The other joke was telling Domaine des Dieux owner Sharon Parnell, who hurried back to SA from foreign shores for the awards luncheon, that she didn’t need to bring any wine with as she’d “only” won a gold and not a trophy. Fortunately the Frans Malan sabrage sword was not handy.

It was a pity that DdD didn’t win a trophy as they’ve a pukka French name and their fizz is fabuleux.