When Christian Eedes proposed, I should have said yes. It was in the honeymoon period of his brief but merry career as editor of WINE magazine and hysteria about the pronouncements of the blind tasting panels at WINE was reaching a cyclical fever pitch. The occasion was towards the end of a boozy lunch at Magica Roma in Pinelands and the offer was to join him on a tasting panel with a leveled headed person like Christine Rudman as referee. A panel of three makes arithmetic easy and as Christian and I have a habit of disagreeing on the merits of particular wines, there are sure to be at least two options for punters who rely on tasting panels to beat a path through the overgrown forest of brands.

Christian, Roland and Jeanri-Tine

A case in point is the Solms-Delta Hiervandaan red blends and Africana desiccated Shirazes made by Hilko Hegewisch we both tasted on Thursday. Christian beats around no indigenous bushes and blogs “Let me be direct: I violently dislike these wines. What defines them for me is oxidation and premature development. The fruit comes across as cooked and the wines lack poise. At a time when all other serious-minded winemakers in the country are desperately trying to get the raisins out of their wine, Solms Delta is putting them in.”

Oh Christian! My top white of last year was a toss-up between an oxidative Chenin from Craig Hawkins called Testalonga el Bandito 2008 and the same thing done in Viognier by Rudi de Wet at Bilton. Eben Sadie has fashioned half of a glittering career as the Baby Jesus of SA wine (pace Anton Espost) from such oxidative styles.

While I respect his opinion and will defend his right to make it, I’m worried that in the many panels that he chairs (that eventually average scores to produce a result) that result may result in invisibility for the wines of maximum character, which is one of my main criteria for choosing them. Sure, many people may violently dislike them, but some may love them and embrace them to their bosoms, singing. How do they find out if the result is a berth in the one star column, lowly rated wines not being accorded the courtesy of a writeup or breakdown of scores?

Unlike Christian’s tasting panels, which assess hundreds of wines against each other, our Thursday tasting was quite specifically done with food and for me the veldkool soup (an indigenous plant that looks like asparagus and tastes like a green bean) made by Shaun Schoeman with plenty of white pepper and potato (for Irish blogger Aemon) was a match made in the kitchen of Louis Leipoldt to the wines.

Veldkool soup

This soup and these wines are my response to Brett Garner, editor of the Franschhoek monthy newspaper The Month, who this month reports “Via his blog, neil Pendock recently laid into ‘frivolous’ Franschhoek yet again and i found myself feeling more than a little peeved at the nerve of the man.”

Brett, have another look at what I said and you will see I called some Franschhoek marketing wheezes “frivolously French.” Franschhoek is not, unlike Reunion, a Department of France and I honestly think indigenous authenticity of the type implemented by Mark Solms and the team on Solms-Delta is the best way forward.