News
April 2006 Flagstone, John Platter
‘Grape Minds’ Launch ...
It’s a great honour for us, Erica and me, to be ‘Present at the Creation’ of Grape Minds…
I didn’t want to be serious tonight, but Tim Atkin got in before me and bagged the light and cheerful slot….
So brace yourselves Bruce and Co.
Nothing justifies journalism….!
That’s a direct quote from – a journalist! A massive overstatement of course, by one of the doyennes of American journalism, Janet Malcolm.
But it only needs to be qualified slightly to apply rather too compellingly to that peculiar brand of journalism known as wine writing.
Every journo, Janet Malcolm wrote in her seminal book ‘The Journalist and the Murderer’ - who is ‘not too stupid or too full of himself to notice what is going on, knows that…the journalist is a kind of confidence man, preying on people’s vanity, ignorance or loneliness.…’
Journalism is manipulation, she writes; and it becomes even worse when it masquerades as truth. ‘It’s the pose of objectivity that’s wrong,” she says. And how right she is.
The moment a news-hound crosses the line into opinion and comment; the moment a war or any other correspondent chooses sides; the moment a reporter deals in allegations instead of corroborated facts…
That’s when journalists get themselves – and even more critically, others - into trouble.
Byron said:
Man must serve his time in every other trade,
Save in censure/
Critics come ready made
Journalism doesn’t refuse membership to influence-peddlers and bull-shitters, axe-grinders, interest-servers – and very often complete incompetents too. You need no qualifications. And too often editors who should know better allow – even solicit – PR writers and consultants to insinuate themselves into editorial pages.
And the trouble is - if we journos are honest – and not too stupid and full of ourselves, as Malcom says - we’d have to admit we enjoy the tingle of power: being confided in, entertained, consulted – and even relish the knowledge that all this buttering-up is not because we are liked, or - an even remoter prospect - respected - but because the media has THE POWER! Make-or-break power.
How is it used – or abused? Ultimately, it all comes down to objectivity and independence, two very different things.
The quality of individual wines, obviously, can’t be a matter for objective assessment, however grand the judging panels – and I have served on enough to know they all have their Achilles heels. Judging is never flawless, and lofty ‘certifications’ by accounting firms don’t validate the judging, only the arithmetic. For real objectivity you’d need some omnipotent machine or computer yet to be invented – and who would programme it?
So subjectivity rules. And therefore bias, preference, prejudice and all the rest.
However, in the thousands of general stories about wine, about growers, their techniques and philosophies – the media attention that builds and breaks reputations… in that coverage, all the old rigorous principles of journalistic independence and ethics should apply…
In South Africa, wine journos have an even broader, special and social responsibility.
And there is one crucial initiative – in our unique, racially charged, circumstances - which should be at the top of our agenda now: BEE – the Black Economic Empowerment of the winelands.
Oh, not politics again, I hear some folks moaning. But politics has ALWAYS mattered in South Africa.
Politics made the old South Africa of isolation, negative growth, huge indebtedness, a gyrating currency; politics has remade the new South Africa – and the incredible prosperity and progress of Cape wine in the past decade: exports have soared by about 1000% in the past 12 years.
When the government says it is patently untenable, even in the short-term, for 99.5% of the Cape’s winelands to remain white-owned, as well as for the preponderance of wine businesses to remain under white control, we should listen.
The sides of the N2 highway are reminders of a revolution on hold. Yes, the government’s welfare handouts to one quarter of the population, 12 million people, are buying time; tax money wisely spent. But, as government says, more fundamental, structural relief cannot be postponed for long.
BEE – call it what you like, political intervention, social engineering, affirmative action, market distortion - is vital if the country is to fix the imbalances of the severest intervention of all – apartheid.
BEE may become an elephantine bureaucratic morass, for a while, and there will be unintended consequences, of course; but, again, in this New South Africa, we’re all in this together.
If I were a betting man - leaving aside all the moralities involved – I’d bet that those who approach BEE (which is coming anyway) as an opportunity rather than an obstacle will score heavily.
Wine journalism in South Africa, and OF South Africa, needs to cover this project as keenly and creatively – and, dare one say it, as subjectively and passionately, as it does the revival of Chenin or the decoding of Pinotage. It is, fundamentally, about the most important Cape wine story in more than 300 years….
But let’s think globally for a moment. About wine and journalism. About Parker, the Emperor of wine, he who ranges alone (no panels, no spitting chorus line), he who ignores competition results, he who doesn’t always taste blind, he who (presumably) doesn’t taste in the same room as his dog, whose farting was immortalized in Mondovino.
Reputations, trophies, contest awards, what other tasters think, simply don’t count, for Parker. Marvellous. And he makes no hand-wringing, moralising pretence about objectivity. You take his score or leave it.
Confident about the consistency of his palate, and the integrity and independence of his methods and views, with no conflicts of interest, no compromises, no adverts, no consultancies, no wine business interests, no free junkets, he epitomizes the essence of credible wine writing.
No wonder he’s maintained a steadfast following among consumers.
But he’s now the most fashionable fall guy for a world awash in ‘Popular Premium’ - as vin ordinaire now seems to be called, a wine PC description smelling suspiciously of PR puffery.
Can his scores really have launched this tidal wave of wines of easy virtue?
What about the Aussies? Shouldn’t they take some of the credit?
And the supermarkets: quenching the thirst and steering the tastes of their mass consumers? Are they entirely blameless for this supposed homogenization of wine? And the big budgets of certain brands, big enough to buy shelf-space, restaurant lists, magazine advertising and – even, perish the thought – wine journalists?
Those who accuse Parker and his supposed principal henchman Michel Rolland of dumbing down wine – worldwide – are, actually, way off the mark. The evidence points convincingly the other way.
There’s a growing choice of styles, from new and reviving wine regions and far-flung latitudes. Ancient grape varieties have been re-discovered and re-made.
Thousands of new producers from all corners of the globe have hotwired the market - all contributing to a world of wine much more diverse and exciting and far less hidebound by rules and regulations and stone-age reputations than ever before.
Our band of brothers here, these Grape Minds, absolutely make – and win – this case. And surely, turn inside out the old cliché: great minds think alike.
They have all risen to the top of a frenzied pile to become noticed and respected not because of any journalist, or because they enter the right shows, but because of their own imagination, hard work and flair. Collectively, they reflect what are the prerequisites of any successful wine region: diversity and specialization, commitment and wine integrity – and of course unmitigated, non-negotiable quality.
Theirs is the old quest for differentiation, the essence of marketing. They know that there will always be a shortage, and hence a good price, for fine and individual wines.
And even more so in the years ahead, as the tectonic convulsions in wine gather pace and demand even more imagination and resourcefulness.
Climate warming will make a casino of terroir patterns. What about genetic modification? They’ll make today’s problems of viruses, resurgent Brett and soaring alcohols seem like a mere bagatelle.
And now China’s arrival – now planting at the rate of 100,000 ha. a year, the equivalent of South Africa’s entire acreage - China will rewrite all the global supply and demand tables in the next decade or two.
Because the Grape Minds bunch are all craftsmen – and, hello, why no women in the group? None good enough for you yet? – you can and should connect directly with your own consumers, by-passing the media middle men.
And this is really my point this evening.
We can harrumph all we like about ethics and principles and impartiality – but we’ll never live in an ideal world of fair play.
But you can make your wines at least partly media-proof, as it were, by speaking directly to the people who drink your wines. Modern connectivity makes all that possible, and should make journos, in time, much less important.
You must be your own communicators.
I’d say – as an entirely impartial, objective observer, of course - that you Grape Minds Minds represent all that’s currently best about Cape wine: inspiration, imagination, individuality, a rugged spirit of adventure and a growing record of genuine, unspun, credible achievement.
The roads less travelled are your paths, and all the more fascinating for it. Keep ignoring those motorway signs… they’re for mass transport, not for you. Good Luck. And thanks.