CHECK out the Lazarus Kid! Yes, Tim James CWM (Cape Wine Master for those who forgot) decided enough is enough. Having over the past few months bored all 18 Grape readers out of their bloomers with lengthy diatribes on unheard of grape varieties tracked down on the West Coast with his hatted, bearded chums as well as those cutesy PR-driven missives in the Mail and Guardian’s new wine column, we find the back-to-form sourpuss in his latest Grape contribution.
And he has the audacity to use me, The Widow, as his cover!
Timothy ?+¦-+???+¦-ú?-¦?+¦-ú?+¦+¦ in my drag outfit, the cheek I tell you – just could not resist scratching that ingrown testicle hair by having a go at the Wine Shiraz Challenge. After having accepted the courteous invitation, gorging himself on a slap-up meal and stylishly sipping the wine, something got him worked up on the way back to Kenilworth. What on earth could have worked him into that frenzy? Could it have been a bergie standing at a traffic light and using a split infinitive when asking Timothy for money?
Whatever it was, something snapped, causing a desire ?+¦-+???+¦-ú?-¦?+¦-ú?+¦+¦ one of few, I hear – to trash the whole Shiraz Challenge. Note: aforementioned haired gonads were not big enough to address concerns to the panel chairman, Bleeds Eedes, at the event itself in person, as real men are wont to do. (If I remember correctly, that is.) No, Timothy’s type prefer to do this before the safety of their computer keyboard, listening to the dogs fart and tossing nail files at the picture of Neil Pendock, an essay supporting blind tasting wine guides and a photograph of a bottle of KWV Sauvignon Blanc stuck to the wall.
Apparently the top wines were not exciting enough for Tim. No reasons or analysis. Just a trash and statement stating the winner ?+¦-+???+¦-ú?-¦?+¦-ú?+¦+¦ Provenance Shiraz from Saronsberg – is a wine of “no real significance”.
Then the handbag gets pulled out at Wine’s editor over a minor error or two. This from the same dude who copy edits the Platter Wine Guide in which it was once stated that Jannie Engelbrecht is a former Springbok fly-half. (Hopefully the tome Timothy is writing on the South African wine industry is more accurate.)
By the way, those who think this error is minor and has nothing to do with wine should attend one of those CWM gigs where tales are told about students having to correct Timothy during his lecturing!
Oh yes, Timothy also uses me to front his allegation that no serious wines enter Veritas. Funny, all those Veritas stickers on the bottles of Kanonkop, a farm that never fails to give him a (rare) semi whenever it is mentioned.
Is the Lazarus phase going to continue? If it does, watch out before you again use my spirit to hide behind those rumpled opinions. Attend your freebies, write your nice friendly wine columns for the Mail and Guardian and those,lengthy essays on Grape.
And for fuck’s sake, use some of that Wine Journalist of the Century prize money to buy some new clothes. I am in the grave and mine look better.
– The Real Widow
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Grape have hauled out the Big Guns: Mr. Min wades in with a sharp comment on the label. What next? A dissection of the winner by Critical Cathy van Zyl MW and a low score in Platter?
First course at the SA School of Wine Journalism:
* How to be a bitch and not write about wine*
Jislaaik Slemiel!
I always knew you wrote with aplomb – but this fellow swine ex from up the thatch a-frame is a GEM!
Fantastic writing.