It would be a brave judge of aesthetics who argued for absolutes in matters of taste. Hamlet’s “there is nothing either good or bad but thinking makes it so” may send us down the rabbit hole of relativism, but it’s a more easily defended position than any that proposes a single acceptable form at the pinnacle of a class.
Are Picasso’s paintings better than Van Gogh’s or Da Vinci’s? Is Mozart’s music better than Bach’s or Beethoven’s? Is Proust a finer novelist than Tolstoy? It’s possible to argue that in a particular field (painting) and style (Cubism or Impressionism) someone is more innovative. It may even be possible to make comparisons about craft — brush technique in painting, breadth of language in prose — but none of this supports a claim that someone was the best artist/composer/writer of all time.
For the same reason it’s tricky to talk about the best wine made from a particular variety or in a particular style — certainly not the best in the world: is Lafite Rothschild from Bordeaux better than Opus One from Napa or Sassicaia from Bolgheri? Consumers can say which they might prefer to drink. But subjectivity brings its own potholes to this winding road: what provision should be made for how my taste buds and olfactory senses perceive things, compared with yours?
A recent walkabout of the top 160 or so wines from the 2025 Trophy Wine Show brought the question of aesthetic judgment into microscopic focus. All the wines were there because a panel of well-trained and highly skilled judges had scored them 90 points (or more) out of 100. In a way this is an endorsement of grape quality and the ability to transform grapes into wine. Compromised fruit and clumsy cellar technique would be evident in the final product: show judges typically remove wines like this from the tasting benches as soon as possible.
But what about palpably different wines from the same variety, all on the same very high score, harvested from the same vintage, but transformed into wine by different winemakers? It’s possible to prefer one — and perhaps even dislike another (while still recognising its intrinsic merit). I’m not a fan of skin contact white wines but I was mightily impressed with the Aslina skin contact chenin blanc 2024. I did not prefer it to the trophy-winning Zevenwacht Z (from a certified Old Vine site) but I can imagine occasions when I would rather be drinking it.
The trophy-winning pinotage (Bellingham Basket Press 2022) was completely different from the style of wine we have come to expect of the variety: it was elegant and fragrant, rather than oak-panelled and muscular, clearly revealing the Burgundian ancestry of the cultivar. The same purity of fruit made the Snow Mountain reserve 2023 a standout example. An equal lightness of touch was evident in the trophy-winning Stellenzicht Arenite syrah 2023 and the gold medal Stellenzicht Tristone cabernet 2023 — luminosity of fruit rather than massiveness of structure: the velvet glove rather than the iron fist.
It would have been a tough decision to determine which of the gold medal port-style wines should win the trophy. Both of the two Boplaas submissions (Cape Vintage 2021 and 2022) were fabulous, as was the Delaire-Graff. It’s almost impossible to imagine any Cape Vintage reserve ports more delicious (or better value). And all of the muscadels (a class so neglected despite the extraordinary wines that sell mostly for about R100 a bottle) were simply splendid: red from Bonnievale, red and white from Du Toitskloof, white from Montagu, all of which speak of perfect fruit, perfectly handled.
There’s a real excitement to new wave Cape wine — and by this I mean the wines that are being made by a new generation of winemakers at some of the oldest (and sometimes least sexy) wineries in the country: they have that rare combination of exuberance coupled with perfection in execution.
• Fridjhon was the chair of the judges at the 2025 Investec Trophy Wine Show.
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