SA Wine Legend: Philip van Zyl
The 2023 edition of Platter’s by Diners Club South African Wine Guide marks editor Philip van Zyl’s 25th year at the helm. Home for Philip is the leafy, historic Somerset West. The region fittingly boasts some of South Africa’s most venerated estates; Lourensford and Vergelegen quickly spring to mind. Today though we meet at a local coffee shop, which also feels right – with the buzz of Christmas shoppers all around us. It’s the time of year the famous guide pops up, with many a wine lover – as is tradition – finding the latest edition in their stocking. I too get the feeling that Philip drinks a lot of coffee, deadlines being a constant backing track to the rhythm of his life.
Philip is a consummate professional. He is dedicated to the all-consuming task of putting the annual guide together. The running joke is he goes underground for the three months when the tastings takes place. Every single word of the 250 000 that make up Platter’s he has to comb over and verify. Not to mention the logistics. To you and I, the guide may look like a stationary object – but to Philip it is in constant flux, ‘there are so many moving parts’
As we sit there idly chatting, boxes of Platter’s 2023 are being unpacked in bookshops across the country. The cover is ‘emblematic’ white adorned with gold lettering, inside are almost 1000 producers, their back-stories, and a dizzying amount of accompanying wines.
Now in its 43rd year, Phillip can lay claim as custodian to more than half of its tenure. Not just the country’s most respected guide to wine, it is also the most complete, printed history of the South Africa wine industry: the yearly colour changing books locking in almost half a century of stats and stories.
At 2023’s recent launch at Jordan Wine Estate, managing director of Diner’s Club, Esh Naidoo rightly expressed: “The guide is a history of South Africa’s modern winemaking era, it paints a picture of how the industry has developed and grown, tracking and providing the proof of the trends, winemaking practices and viticultural developments that have shaped the wines we are making today.”
Toasting Philip with a glass of Cap Classique, the vision of the rolling Stellenbosch vineyards through wide windows. Esh honours him: “He has the knack of editing each tasting note so that it not only conveys useful information about the wine, it reads beautifully, too. He works quietly in the background, carefully crafting, polishing and fine-tuning the text all while remaining humble and avoiding the spotlight.”
Though having spent the majority of his career in service to the wine industry, the wine bug only bit Philip later in life. Words were first. Growing up in Linden, Johannesburg he attended local schools followed by studying English and Art History at Rand Afrikaans University.
Philip muses that he inherited his perfectionist tendencies from his parents who both happened to be Virgos…
“My dad was a scientist, but he was also into the arts. He had an amazing mind, you could ask him anything, and he could tell you exactly how it works, from plants to planes.
“A special treat for him was a wine called Goldtröpfchen, one of those Stellenbosch Farmer’s Winery wines that had a German name at the time. We never had it at home, it was always ordered at restaurants and my dad would allow me to taste it. He loved it, I wasn’t so impressed,” laughs Philip.
After graduating Philip entered the world of publishing. First a stint as a journalist at Die Vaderland, then he joined Systems Publishers, which specialised in trade magazines, Engineering Week, Marketing Mix and PC Magazine, the latter he edited. It was during this time (around 1985) he met his wife, the formidable Cathy van Zyl MW. She wasn’t yet into wine either. The two were married in 1988.
From Systems Publishers he used his formative knowledge of the tech world to write the high profile computing’ section for The Star with fellow journalist Johan Bornman. He continued in this vein, working as a freelance writer for PR companies in the computing field.
Life unfolded at an amiable pace, until a gambit between he and his wife forever changed the course of both their lives. Cathy had asked him to participate with her in what was then Cape Argus Cycle Tour. He agreed, on one condition – that she join him on a Cape Wine Academy course, his interest piqued by his sister-in-law who had just completed one.
The deal was to initially just do the introductory course, but the bug had bit, and hard. Working as freelance scribes in Joburg, they soon did the academy’s Certificate Course and what was then Diploma 1 and Diploma 2. They were already in love with the Cape from spending holidays at a relative’s home there, and with their journey into wine the couple fell even further down the rabbit hole
“I said to Cathy, ‘shall we just give it a go?’” Philip says about the increasingly tempting prospect of moving to Cape Town.
“It was the best decision ever,” he says emphatically about relocating to the Cape. The pair continued to write freelance, Philip now also picking up wine writing gigs, among them pieces for Sunday Life and Winemag. This saw him attending tastings and events. A few months later at one such occurrence he found himself sitting next to the editor of Platter’s, Erica Platter.
The very next day he received a phone call from Andrew McDowall, who informed him that he was buying Platter’s from John and Erica. Erica wanted to retire and she thought that Philip would be the right person to take over from her. She must have been impressed by his enthusiasm.
Already a die-hard fan of the wine guide Philip says he and Cathy were ‘Platter’s groupies’. “Every November we’d stand outside the CNA waiting for it to arrive.”
Philip officially came on-board in 1998 and began work on the 1999 edition. He says tasters Dave Swingler, Angela Lloyd and Tim James (who are still part of the team today) were helpful and supportive of his learning the ropes.
When asked how he has dealt with the criticism invariably lobbed at him through the yeras, he says:
“The folks who want to be in the guide, want to be there. We've never sourced wine independently; it's been on an opt-in basis since day one. The producers could have voted with their feet and left en masse if they wanted to. But they didn't do that. Because they believe in the integrity of what we do. I just hold on to that.”
Leaving the café, back home to his wife Cathy and son Luke. Philip walks past shops as they stack his labour onto shelves. The CNAs are long gone, but with such careful curatorship as shown by Philip, and a life dedicated to the South African wine industry, long live Platter’s.
- Blog by Malu Lambert