Ok… so… South African wine is almost hopelessly underpriced.

As in, shot-themselves-in-the-foot-and-will-be-limping-through-the-U.S.-wine-market-for-a-few-more-years underpriced. Which means that exciting bargains exist for the budget-conscious wine lover who’s willing to seek out the best wines from SA.

That’s the big take-away for me from my time speaking at the 2013 Nederburg Wine Auction near Cape Town earlier this month. Of course, some touring of the region’s wineries went down on that trip as well, so there will be some features on the best of those visits coming your way here over the next few weeks. For now, I’d like to focus on some of the highlights of what I tasted during the two days of the Nederburg Auction itself.

Not all of these wines will be available in the States yet (alas), but those that are generally have price tags that goofily belie their quality and pleasure-inducing vinous super-powers Clark Kent style, which means it’s like bear-market prices on some very, very nice wines for those now in the market for the best that SA has to offer.

For the sake of the lovely people making wine there – many of whom I now consider friends after breaking bread, cracking corks, and eating strange game meats with them – I’d love to not have to say that about how they’ve priced their wares, and would love to say that their wines will command the prices that similar quality would demand from other regions… BUT… it just ain’t so.

The truth is that SA in a crappy situation market-wise on that front, and the declining value of the Rand versus the dollar and the euro isn’t going to help matters much. And of course they already know all of that, so this isn’t news for them – but it does mean potential bargains for you, if you’re the open-minded wine drinking type…

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Sometimes synchronicity of seemingly unrelated events feels like it’s biting you on the ass (like when you get an increase in property taxes, health care premiums, and the price of your favorite beer, all in the same week). But other times, synchronicity is amicable, gently applying a sort of lifestyle deep tissue massage to your spiritual buttocks.

I think a recent congruence of wine-related events in my life falls into the latter (butt-massaging) category. They involve 1) the Publix supermarket chain, 2) thinking about low-acid wine grape varieties, 3) South Africa, and 4) racial tolerance.

I know what you’re thinking… how’s he gonna get himself out of this one? Have some faith, people!

For a little while now, I’ve been quietly (not a normal operating mode for me, I know) penning the In Focus section for Publix Grape Magazine (those of you living in much of the Southern U.S. can sign up for Grape, for free, by the way). I love the gig, because they ask me to take complex wine topics like Oak or Yeasts and make them accessible (and hopefully edu-taining) to wine laypeople (also known as normal people who don’t find obsessing over detailed winemaking topics to be as geektastic as we do). The Fall edition of Grape is hitting publication now, and in it I write about the fascinating (to us geeks, I mean) world of… wait for iiiiit… wine acids!

Hello? Anyone still there?!??…

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You’d think that, as a self-professed Riesling freak, I’d have been in a Happy Place that was damn near orgasmic in attending the 2013 Riesling Rendezvous in Seattle, as a media guest of the organizers.

And you’d be right, of course. For Riesling lovers, this was “I’d better go change my pants again” kind of tasting event, with Riesling stalwarts (and their wines) assembled from all over the globe (with the oddly notably exception of Alsace, of which not a drop was poured over the weekend).

But that’s not a good story. I mean, as tear-enducingly, soul-achingly good as some of the Rieslings from Reichsgraf von Kesselstatt, Robert Weil, Dr. Loosen (the good doctor Ernie was in the house at RR, by the way) and A. Christmann can be… is it really that interesting to tell you that they’re still tear-enducingly, soul-achingly good? Not really, methinks (now there’s a word that doesn’t get enough airtime these days!).

No, the story is about the Rieslings that aren’t quite as tear-enducingly, soul-achingly good, but are still pretty damn good, the Rieslings that hail from locations that would surprise most of the Riesling purists out there. And I should know, since I participated in two sessions of twenty blind-tasted Rieslings during which MWs, winemakers, sommeliers and wine media pros all took turns mostly getting the provenance of those wines totally and completely wrong. Which means that Riesling now being made worldwide is probably getting better, converging on a consistent flavor and aroma profile “fingerprint,” and now more than ever before offers more quality choices for those who are willing to explore some of the Riesling-producing areas whose names aren’t yet on the tip of your tongue, but whose wines probably ought to be…

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Late last month, I wrapped up a stint at the fourth and final wine competition in which I’d be judging in 2013, the 10th Annual Critics Challenge in (Stay Classy) San Diego.

The results of that comp. have been announced. Following are some thoughts on the Critics Challenge itself, and notes on some of the winning wines.

All hyperbole aside, I loved judging at the Critics Challenge with a passion that burns like the core of a million undiscovered stars [ Editor’s Note: not all hyperbole has been taken aside ]. And so, this might turn out to be a love letter of sorts to the CC.

The only CC cavil I’ve got is that the location, a bit outside of downtown (Stay Classy) San Diego isn’t the most convenient or picturesque of spots (unless you really enjoy close-up views of twelve-lane highways and strip malls). Otherwise, the CC is the kind of wine comp. in which almost any judge wishes he could take part: high-caliber judges who aren’t douchebags, a volunteer staff that keeps pace with any (I’ve yet encountered) worldwide, a well-organized agenda, generally very-good-to-excellent wines being entered, and a total dismissal of what has become a meaningless award given in American wine comps. (the Bronze Medal). I can’t even fault them for giving me that Petit Sirah flight, since a) many of them were good, and b) they gave us Sensodyne whitening toothpaste.

Each of the CC judges is paired up, with each pair getting a volunteer captain to coordinate logistics, and the highest medal awarded between the pair for any given wine becomes the final award chosen (predicated on the idea that if you only invite judges who know what the hell they’re doing, this system should turn out to be fair to the wines and to consumers). In what I can only conclude was a fit of insanity, head honcho Robert Whitley paired me with ThirstyGirl.com founder and all-around-awesome-girl Leslie Sbrocco; we beat the oddsmakers, though, in that neither of us was either kicked out of the comp. or arrested by the (Stay Classy) San Diego police…

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