Top 100 SA Wines – the hundred best wines of South Africa

The tasting of the wines

Before the tasting starts, six bottles of each wine are available. When serving the wines, the jury ensures that white wines are always tasted at 14° and red wines at 19°. Although this does not always correspond to the ideal drinking temperature, the finest aromas can be tasted better this way. Sparkling wines are tasted at 7°. Two bottles are available per tasting session. One bottle is opened before the tasting (red wines 12 hours before, white wines 2 hours before) and the other is opened just before the tasting. This gives the experts a good impression of the development potential of the wines. The methodology used is based on input from international jurors and on the analysis and evaluation of numerous wine events.

A portrait of the evaluation scheme of TOP 100 SA Wines

The professional jurors act independently and respond only to panel members and to the chairman Greg Sherwood. The wines are tasted blindly to avoid brand association. Discussion is allowed in case of faulty wines or protocol violation. After each tasting round there will be a panel discussion to record the score and results of each wine tasting. In case of discrepancies in the evaluation, the panel and the chairman will reach a unanimous agreement on the evaluation of the wine. All wines will be tasted at least twice and can be tasted up to four times, so the panel guarantees a fair ranking. A 20-point system is used, in which only the very best achieve a high score. The one hundred wines with the highest scores are then ultimately awarded with the Top 100 SA Wine award. By the way, the published list does not reflect any ranking, it is colourfully mixed. The first wine on the Top 100 SA Wines list is therefore not necessarily better than the third.

Here you get to the TOP 100 SA Wines