This is a twofer of a column. Two ideas, one column. Bargain.

The first one concerns itself with tawny port, the second with Shiraz/Syrah and both with the vagaries of taste. Ports are wines whose fermentations have been stopped through the addition of wine spirit. This neutral spirit raises the alcohol and kills off the yeast, leaving unfermented sugars in the wine – hence its sweetness. Tawny ports are wines made in this method but are then aged in oak casks for extended amounts of time. This exposes the wine to more oxygen, resulting in nutty flavours.

I love tawny port. The flavours of sweet raisin, black tea and earth make we want to shout and dance around singing, “I’m Tawny, Tawny Tawny Tawny tonight.” I finished half a bottle last night in preparation for this column. It made me happy.

But not as happy as I was the last time I drank it – and that’s the rub. The wine was the Boplaas Non-Vintage Tawny. I have been extolling its virtues – specifically its R80 price tag – to anyone who will listen. “What a bargain,” I would say thumping my fist and grinning manically, “R80 for a decent tawny. You must try it. No, you MUST. Delicious black tea flavours, with nuts and sweet fruit goodness. Goddamn delicious my friend, god damn delicious.” As you can tell, I can be a somewhat trying friend.

But this time things turned out a little differently. I opened the bottle, poured a glass, and sat back with a glow of anticipation settling over me. I drank. I raised a quizzical eyebrow. Was this the same wine? What had happened? I sipped again. It felt awkward, clumsy – still tasty, sure, but lacking the delicousness that I remembered. I finished my glass, poured another, llit a cigarette (I love a smoke and a sweet wine) and contemplated the change.

Then, quite suddenly, I realised what the problem was. This past Saturday I attended a dinner at Overture – the restaurant at which the brilliant Bertus Basson cooks – where a selection of wines from Dirk Niepoort were drunk. Dirk is a wine producer from the Douro Valley in Portugal, the home of Port, and, really, the only place that can call its wines Port. I am not going to go into detail about Dirk (I wrote a profile on him if you are interested), but it was his 1991 Colheita (a Colheita is vintage tawny Port that has spent at least seven years in cask) that had so affected my tastes.

I am convinced that its sheer brilliance made the Boplaas taste lazy in comparison. The Niepoort was so fresh with that lovely tea character, citrus and earthiness; it danced a line between savoury and sweet, showing off a brilliant hiked skirt of acidity. Gorgeous.

And this is what happens in wine – and why I am far off from being a judge – there is a need for continual benchmarking (wine speak for drinking really good wines). The Boplaas isn’t trying to compete with Coheitas from the Douro, and I am not putting it down, but my experience of it changed after being reminded what tawny Ports can do. It is a perfect excuse to order that better bottle of wine.

“Dear, I know it is expensive, but I must benchmark this evening.”

It also reminds me that there is always a better bottle out there, and if not better, then different. The multitudinous nature of wine is its sexiest, and most humbling aspect.

Part two. Que Sera… Oh god, what a terrible line. This part involves a dinner where I drink nine Syrahs/Shirazes.

Let’s clear one thing up. At the core of things, there is no difference between Shiraz or Syrah. They both signify the same grape. When stuck on a bottle’s label they may hint toward a certain style of wine, but whatever is inside is made from the same grape. In other words, if you judge a book by its cover you may be disappointed; for example, the title of the recipe book “Be Bold With Bananas” could lead someone quite astray indeed.

Syrah is French. It points to the Rhone, hints at elegance and restraint, dark olives, earth, white pepper, violets. The Australians decided to give the grape a more, well, fair dinkum name, and chose Shiraz; it signifies bigger and bolder wines; spicier, fleshier drinks with fire in their bellies and the heat of the outback in their soul. However, to generalise too widely and wildly about wine is to make mistakes.

We use the terms interchangeably here in South Africa. As I mentioned, the choice of word suggests a style certain style of wine, but it’s more marketing than anything else. Sometimes the terms are accurate, and sometimes not at all. There are elegant Shirazes out there, and big and bold Syrahs.

What style do we aim for in South Africa? As usual, we are in the middle. We are able to produce elegant wines just as easily as we do the big and bold bastards. Syrah plantings have increased in recent years as it has become a more popular variety. So it was with interest that I sat down with some other winos to taste through seven top South African examples, two French, and a Chilean version. The wines were provided by one of my favourite wine stores in Cape Town, Wine Cellar in observatory.

These wines were poured in a rather unconventional style. Initially decanted, they were then poured back into different bottles. So the Mullineaux 09’s bottles could have contained a wine from the Rhone. Essentially we had no idea what wines we were tasting.

I am not going to go inot detail for each of the wines, but the overwhelming favourite wine of the evening was the Vins D’Orrance Syrah 2008. It was succulent, rich and spicy but with great freshness. Succulent is really the best word for it. A Syrah you could bite into.

The Mullineux 2009 Syrah was also excellent. Bright red fruits, a touch of white pepper, and a lovely sour cranberry finish. But what I found most  interesting – and here we are back to the hazards of taste – was that my favourite wine was not the best one. It was an Alain Graillot Crozes-Hermitage 2009, and the reason it was my favourite is because I am a complete sucker for dark-olive flavours in Syrah. Give me some earthy olive notes and I fall in love. It reminded me how fickle and easily swayed we can be by personal preferences. Looking at my notes it is quite clear the Graillot was not my “top” wine. But it was the first one I returned to when our steaks arrived.

Is there a moral to this story? Not really, but don’t be afraid to like what you like even if is not the best. Trust your tastes, but realise their frailty, the dependence on knowledge, circumstance and environment. There’s no such thing – as the saying goes – as a great wine, just a great bottle.