AWKWARD! Who was more embarrassed: the good folk at Spier Wine Farm in Stellenbosch, the South African National Wine Show Association who organise the Veritas Awards, or the sponsors of the competition? Whereas De Grendel Wine Estate in Panorama/Durbanville would be forgiven if they felt robbed! The 2021 prize-giving took place in early November and the Duimpie Bayly Veritas Vertex Award for the grand champion was presented for the 2018 vintage of Spier Creative Block 5, a red blend made using five Bordeaux grape varieties with Cabernet Sauvignon taking the lead. Lovely wine and consistently so; one of the Top 10 red blend track records in the country. However… a few weeks down the line it was revealed that its score had been pegged at 93 for bottle-sticker purposes. This versus the 98 for De Grendel Elim Shiraz 2019. On the face of it, we’re looking at the Vertex Award for the highest-scoring wine in the competition going to one that doesn’t have the highest score? Go figure!

No fault of the jury – all experts, doing what was asked of them. First time round they scored 80 wines 93+, i.e. the double gold medallists including the De Grendel Shiraz registering 98 on the 100-point scale. Then some of the judges were asked to re-taste and re-score the double golds, all but those in the fortified and museum classes. There had been various panels judging hundreds of wines entered across numerous classes and at the end of deliberations the brains trust wanted a single panel to assess the leading wines and to vote for an overall winner. So it was that that Spier’s Creative Block 5 was ranked number one. Trouble is, the number-crunchers aren’t saying how the wines rated second time round and the 2021 Veritas Award bottle stickers include the scores awarded initially. Say what? If you’re going to recalibrate, then surely you’d adjust all of the figures from round one and then hit the refresh button. Shouldn’t we be told how much better the 2018 Creative Block 5 fared second time round? At the very least its score for public scrutiny could have been tweaked so as not to be lower than that for any other wine…

2021 is the first year that scores have been included on the bottle stickers that entrants in this competition can purchase for putting on their wines. Yet for whatever reason, the 2021 award winners promoted by way of the website / booklet are listed according to medal type only, with no reference to the scores. It’s unlikely that Spier will be putting a 93 point Veritas sticker on their bottles. On the other hand, nobody can fault De Grendel for putting a 98 point double gold medal sticker on theirs – perhaps together with one showing off the 97 point 5 Star award in Platter’s 2022 SA Wine Guide. No doubt the Veritas execs will get their act together next time round, in everybody’s best interests.