It’s a topical subject, but selecting a top 100 South Africa wines is no easy task, as eight colleagues who joined me in compiling their crème de la crème of the local industry discovered.

Previous Grape polls - I think - have never ventured beyond a maximum of twenty wines or producers; one hundred wines is a different matter. Decisions taxing those involved include should one go on track record, or list wines that aren’t to your personal taste, but should be included on the basis of quality? What if a current release isn’t up to par? Then should those small producers with tiny production, who few know about but who make really top class wines be considered?

To make selections easier, nominations were unconditional; there was no burden of listing vintages, selecting just one wine from any producer or ranking the wines; the last welcome latitude left the Top 100 as the Top 108, the placing that rounded off the same wines being nominated by three judges. Although the wines are listed 1 to 108, please note they are arranged strictly in alphabetical order.

Statistics can mean what you want them to mean but an exercise such as this is as much about statistics as a story, or more likely the statistics are the story!

One of the more interesting stats was that, as much as our white wines are regularly praised above our reds, the latter received more votes in the top line up: 53 versus 43. Maybe it’s a case of wishful thinking. Three Méthode Cap Classiques, five dessert wines and four fortifieds gives less reason for discussion, as do the names behind them.

The nine judges had somewhere between seven and eight hundred wine producers to chose from. Seventy three of those were nominated for the top selection with a further 66 completing the lists. Making yourself heard in such a crowded market is obviously not easy and, again, one has to wonder how some of the lesser known properties or brands manage to keep their heads above water. Even close to 20 years after South Africa has entered the international market, marketing would seem to remain a big challenge.

While the majority of the list won’t surprise, there are two wines, both from Constantia, that possibly will. Steenberg Magna Carta and Constantia Glen 5 (currently listed as just Constantia Glen in Platter), are relatively new wines; Steenberg has just released the second vintage of its flagship, Magna Carta, the Platter five star 2009; Constantia Glen has yet to release the second, 2008, vintage of what will be labelled Constantia Glen 5, after the five Bordeaux varieties grown on the property. So to the wider wine loving public, these are not yet that well known, though on current form, they are destined to be widely recognised.

But it’s not always the flagships that have made the selection: Kleine Zalze Bush Vines Chenin Blanc hails from the value-for-money, Cellar Selection range; its credentials are well-established, regularly being awarded alongside much more ambitious wines.

The list, like anything else to do with wine, features today’s winners; do the same exercise in a year or even six months, with a different or even the same panel, and the results could be different. Some names – Boekenhoutskloof, Cape Point Vineyards, Kanonkop, Sadie, Thelema and Vergelegen – never miss a list, whatever its objective (for Vin de Constance, neither does Klein Constantia), so they can rightly be named the Cape’s First Growth properties. Other names, perhaps surprisingly missing this time, either from the top echelon or even from a single mention, could well feature on the next occasion: a reflection of the wonderful, fluid nature of wine and the Cape’s viticulturists and winemakers’ efforts to produce quality above all.

Below the top 108 are listed the ten wines which were voted for by all nine  judges. Given the choice available, this is a worthy achievement.

Wines that received the vote of all nine judges

• Beaumont Hope Marguerite Chenin Blanc

• Boekenhoutskloof Cabernet Sauvingon

• Cape Point Vineyards Isliedh

• Hamilton Russell Vineyards Chardonnay.

• Kanonkop Paul Sauer

• Klein Constantia

• Vin de Constance

• Sadie Columella

• Steenberg Magna Carta

• Thelema Cabernet Sauvignon

• Vergelegen White