This story was posted on the interwebs last week and was a poor ad for Platter then. Why post it again?

Ad or not, I thought it quite interesting to get a peak behind the scenes.

A lot of criticism toward Platter is really only frustration that there is no alternative on the SA market. E.g. in Germany you're a fan of Gault-Milau or Eichelmann, in Italy Gambero Rosso or Duamilavini etc, depending on which is better aligned to your own palate. You can hardly blame Platter for the lack of a competitor.

We should count ourselves lucky to have a guide into which the entire country's production fits.

Care to say why you think its a poor ad Carla?

Platter's focuses on getting their critics to taste wine and providing their opinions to wine drinkers at a cost.

Another approach is to collect 1000's of ratings and reviews by actual wine drinkers and provide the info for free to all.

This is the approach taken by www.thevine.co.za

Will be interesting to see how this pans out.

http://blogs.timeslive.co.za/pendock/2012/05/16/greek-crisis-some-good-news/#more-11612

http://www.huntergatherervintner.blogspot.com/2012/05/dear-neil.html

To truly understand the complexity and value of South Africa wines, one would need both sides of the coin:

expert opinion and
the actual person drinking the wine's opinion ( which I value more as they actually paid for that wine out of their own pockets )

Platters = expert opinion, but one can argue that this opinion is biased
theVine.co.za = collective opinion from all wine drinkers - people buying the actual wines, also biased to some extent, but mostly because its the ACTUAL customer buying wine from producers

What would producers like more, having the opinion of wine experts or 1000's of opinions from their actual customers?

Thoughts?

Sites like theVine.co.za (and Cellartracker internationally) are invaluable tools but also very dangerous in the wrong hands. With a few educated exceptions, the opinion of hobbyists and casual drinkers will never be more than *interesting* to me when it's near impossible to get to know the palates behind the 1000's of opinions. The opportunity to get to know and trust a palate, presents itself best with published expert opinion.

@Dieter,

Agree with your opinion, however, what is the aim?

To determine great wines, good wines, average wine and bad wines from South Africa producers?

Or is the aim to help the average wine consumer make a decision without having to understand the expert terminology, tasting scales, processes and methods?

Another thing to keep in mind is that when stripping all the fancy terminology, palates etc... wine producers only produce wine to sell to consumers. If people don't buy, they go bankrupt...

Good to have an expert guide to ensure that SA wine quality is at least on par, however, good for the consumer to have a guide from a consumer perspective as well...

What we really need is a combination, but with more focus on the consumer than the expert opinion:

Expert - ensuring we compete on the world stage
Consumer - consumer driven guide to choosing and buying wine, a single platform for wine producers to connect directly to their consumers on a regular basis - basically something enabling the producers to know what their customers want ie, what will increase their sales and all that directly from the customer

I see your point, and while I can't speak for the need of a producer/consumer platform, as a consumer "with anorak tendencies" I'll never be comfortable with blindly trusting average consumer opinion.

I quickly browsed theVine and the first note I found read something like "not mature enough and need to wait", etc. This might be a workable note for the poster to keep track of his stash, but it tells me, the happy browser, nuuuthing. And the producer even less. Is it too acidic, too tannic, too thin? Maybe I'm a tannin devouring acid junkie that would love the wine in question right now, but I'd never know.

An expert guide should be able tell me, should I wish to throw R300 at that bottle, whether it's balanced, is heavy, or light, does it have the structure to make old bones if I don't like it immediately, is it fruity, maybe spicy? I.e. could this to to my taste/suit my palate or purpose? No hyped up terminology, but simple, experienced advice for when I'm not prepared to spend that kind of money on a bottle to test. Sadly, at the moment, there is really one one publication in the country that does this.

Anybody know Mondial cost per entry?