Reviews (November 2009)
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Wine Review
by Helen Savage
As sport-mad South Africa gears up to welcome the 2010 Football World Cup, the country’s winemakers are keen to use the opportunity to sell their produce and, in their own words, “tell the world what makes South African wine so special.”
Their marketing push has four ‘cornerstones’: that South Africa offers a warm welcome; that it enjoys a proud heritage; that it is (undeniably) a magic place and first and foremost that it “leads the world in producing quality wines in an environmentally sensitive and ethically responsible way.”
South Africa can point to the fact that it makes more Fairtrade wine than any other country, most of which is very good indeed. Black empowerment is the key aim. The spectacularly beautiful Cape wine-lands also enjoy a natural diversity of plant-life that has earned World Heritage status; the Cape Floral Kingdom is home to over 10,000 plant species. Wine producers like to be seen to be doing their bit to maintain this very special inheritance. They also like to argue that South Africa’s immensely complex and rich diversity of soil types must be reflected in the wine they make. “Variety is in our Nature,” is their slogan.
From next year, you may spot a little label on bottles of South African wine that guarantees their “Integrity and Sustainability”. To achieve this, producers will have to have achieved are series of targets that monitor environmental impact and care, water use, and health and safety. The environmental requirements for this will also include measures to ensure that the region’s extraordinary biodiversity will be protected. But there is no requirement to use organic viticulture (still relatively rare in South Africa).
Despite all this, and although global exports of South African wine are now rising again, the industry struggles to demonstrate that Cape wines themselves have a distinctive character. At the annual Wines of South Africa tasting in London last month, Anthony Hamilton Russell whose family estate has turned out some exquisite Chardonnay and Pinot Noir, suggested that blends of grape varieties might be the answer. He talks about “the tyranny of varietalism”, which, he explains means that, “You approach a blend as a wine and don’t expect it to be like anything else.” He believes that, “If you have the confidence to break the rules, it’s evidence of a growth of self confidence as a nation.”
Is he right? His new dry white is a blend utterly typical of what one might expect from Bordeaux. I thought it was delicious, but thought that his point about the open-mindedness one might bring to tasting a blend was holed below the water line.
I’m puzzled and not a little confused. Why are South African winemakers apparently reluctant to proclaim, for example, that wine made from their two best-known grape varieties, Pinotage and Chenin Blanc, may also be uniquely South African? Some of them are splendid.
Maybe we wine critics must take some of the blame, especially in the UK. We tend to have a sniffy attitude to Pinotage and too often say that red wines from South Africa are too often a little raw and ungenerous. One colleague, who had not attended the annual Wine of South Africa tasting in London last month, said as much to me the very day after the South Africans had packed up and gone home. If he had been able to go to Earl’s Court he would surely have been confounded.
The very best wines I tasted at Earl’s Court were, however, both straight, unblended Shiraz made by Rianie Strydom a softly-spoken Afrikaner. Her Dombeya Boulder Road Shiraz 2007 was fabulously, perfumed, elegant and complex, and more approachable that her Haskell Shiraz 2007, which to the great delight of her compatriots came top in a competition with the best of Australia and New Zealand. The Dombeya costs £11.50 from www.londonfinewine.co.uk and, even at that price, is as hot a bargain as I’ve stumbled upon all year.
I want to talk South African up. I love the way the winemakers are proud of their country and proud to say ‘wamkelekile’ (in Xhosa, ‘we welcome you). But I also didn’t see a non-white face amongst the hundreds at Earl’s Court and that bothers me.
Wine of the Month
Sainsbury’s South African Fairtrade Chenin Viognier 2009. £4.99.
Deliciously perfumed dry white that’s, fresh, peachy, spicy, soft, grapey and lovely with white meat or cheese.
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Film and Faith
by Luke O sbaldeston
The Invention of Lying
Certificate: 12A. Original Cinema Release UK:
2nd of October 2009. Length: 100 minutes
Directors: Ricky Gervais & Matthew Robinson
Stars: Ricky Gervais, Jennifer Garner, Jonah Hill, Louis C. K., Rob Lowe, Jeffrey Tambor.
Aha! Here we have a film that raises genuine –if old - theological questions, and for that reason alone it is commendable. You could watch it with a group of parishioners because there’s potential for easy and introductory theological discussion – more than in a lot of contemporary written material. But whether the film will have an effect on its audience is harder to discern.
The premise is very thin indeed, stretched beyond breaking point at times. Imagine a world where everyone tells the truth about things. It is the world we all live in now, but without any lies, so everything in it is recognisable. This farcical joke runs dry after about 15 minutes, but there are two moments in the film that stand out.
The first is as the Gervais character, Mark Bellison, sits by his dying mother in the hospital. Terrified at the thought of dying, she tells Bellison that she does not want to face an eternal nothingness. Bellison, who shortly before has discovered a unique ability to tell lies, being moved greatly by his mother’s plight, tells her that death is not the end, and in fact a wonderful existence awaits her in the afterlife. This is a moving scene, played deadpan by Gervais, who is stretching himself dramatically. It is not Marlon Brando from On The Waterfront, but it works.
The second important scene is Bellison’s subsequent explanation of what the afterlife is like, how you get to it, and who is in charge of all such things – The Man in the Sky. It’s an old idea, yes, but it can certainly generate some theological discussion.
The film has a poor fantasy logic to it, which it perverts it in places, and so weakens the overall effect. For example, the Bellison character has become rich and famous, but not so famous it seems that he can’t go around largely unrecognised. In a world that is our own but without lies, this fails as a credible narrative, and renders the attempts at humour cold.
It would not be difficult, either, to deconstruct the unnamed part of the United States where the film is set and discover the Christian and other influences in it that are present in the background (Jewish characterisation for example) but which remain unexplained. Question: If we have not had an Old Testament, or New, then how have such things developed ? This film does not try hard enough to tackle such issues, and so fails to create a credible, entertaining reality that the viewing public cares about.
At university Gervais started studying biology but changed very shortly afterwards and got his degree in philosophy. This shows in the film – it is a sort of first year philosophy thought experiment, taken down to the students’ union, mulled over with the aid of a few drinks, and then stretched out into a full-blown script, with attempts to cover the gaping holes in its theory by casting a British comedian in the lead – a comedian who also happens to be a rising Hollywood star.
But is it really a comedy ? There aren’t a lot of laughs, and in the two-thirds full cinema where I saw it, members of the audience weren’t exactly rolling in the aisles. There are relatively little expletives, however, so maybe a 12A certificate is slightly harsh in that respect. But it strikes me that the subject material itself might be a little too adult for many people.
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