Winemakers On Fire, Issue #124

The Great Flattening

Platter's 2026 South African Wine Guide recently hit the bookshops. Inside its pages: 300 five-star wines, all scoring 95 points or above. Add another 400 wines sitting at 94 points, and you've got 700 bottles the critics consider exceptional.

Out of 7,000 labels in the trade, that's 10% earning top marks.

Here's the question nobody wants to ask: if 10% of wines are exceptional, is exceptional still exceptional? Or has it simply become "very good with decent distribution"?

Welcome to the Great Flattening—the point where everything excellent becomes indistinguishable, and the numerical systems we've relied on to guide choice stop differentiating and start obscuring.

When Ratings Collapse

Score inflation isn't unique to wine. Academia wrestles with grade inflation. Economies deal with currency debasement. Any system that rewards volume over rigour eventually hits this wall—the top collapses inward, and the middle disappears.

In wine, the consequences are immediate and visible. A 95-point Swartland Syrah from a radical natural winemaker with a compelling farming story sits next to a 95-point corporate blend engineered specifically to hit reviewer benchmarks. Same score. Wildly different wines. Zero context for the consumer standing in the aisle trying to make a choice.

The rating was supposed to simplify. Instead, it flattens. It strips away terroir, philosophy, story, and distinctiveness, leaving only a number that no longer carries meaning because too many wines share it.

When everyone gets an A, the A becomes worthless.

South Africa's Paradox

From a consumer perspective, South African wine has never been better. Or cheaper. We over-deliver on the quality-to-price ratio in ways that would be marketing gold for any other category. Imagine if luxury cars or premium electronics offered world-class performance at accessible prices—the brand storytelling would be relentless.

But walk into a South African wine shop, and you'll see something else entirely: a sea of metallic stickers. Gold medals here, silver plaques there, 95-point badges everywhere. The visual noise is deafening. When every bottle on the shelf shouts "award-winner," none of them are actually heard.

This is the great flattening made visible. The industry has done the hard work—the quality is genuinely there, the diversity is extraordinary, and the terroir stories are some of the most compelling in the wine world. Swartland alone could fill a masterclass on what makes wine interesting. Yet instead of leaning into what makes each wine distinctive, the default response is external validation through scores and stickers.

It's symptomatic of a deeper confidence problem, as if South African wine still needs a badge to justify its existence on the global stage.

Newsflash: it doesn't. Not anymore.

Where The Logic Breaks Down

The mathematical absurdity becomes clear when you follow the trend line. If 300 wines scored 95+ this year, how many next year? And the year after? We've already passed "peak wine" in terms of global production quality. What happens when we pass peak 95-point scores?

The rating system has painted itself into a corner. To maintain credibility, it can't keep inflating scores indefinitely. But to maintain relevance, it can't suddenly deflate and tell 300 winemakers their five-star wine is now four stars because the curve needed adjusting. The system is trapped by its own generosity.

Meanwhile, the consumer stands in the aisle, bewildered. Seven thousand labels. Seven hundred excellent wines. Dozens of gold stickers per shelf. The ratings were supposed to guide them. Instead, they've created equivalence where none exists and obscured the very differences that would help someone make a meaningful choice.

What Stickers Can't Deliver

Here's what a 95-point score tells you: a qualified taster found this wine technically proficient, balanced, and expressive on the day they tasted it. That's useful information, but it's also remarkably limited.

It doesn't tell you why this wine matters. It doesn't tell you the story of the soil, the winemaker's philosophy, the risks taken in the vineyard, or the creative vision behind the blend. It doesn't tell you whether this wine represents something bigger than itself—a movement, a region's renaissance, or a sustainable farming revolution.

Most importantly, it doesn't tell you whether this wine will resonate with you specifically, because you aren't the critic. Your palate, your preferences, your context, and your moment are all different.

Story, positioning, and relationship—these are the three things a sticker can never deliver. Yet these are precisely the tools that create actual differentiation in a flattened market.

The wines that break through aren't necessarily the ones with the highest scores. They're the ones people remember, talk about, and actively seek out because they mean something beyond points. They stand for something. They connect with something. They matter in ways that transcend technical excellence.

The False Shortcut

The appeal of scores and stickers is obvious—they're shortcuts. For winemakers, they're easier than building a brand narrative. For retailers, they're simpler than staff training. For consumers, they're faster than learning about wine.

But shortcuts have costs. In this case, the cost is commodification. When you reduce wine to a number, you've turned it into a widget. You've stripped away everything that makes it culturally significant, emotionally resonant, and worth caring about beyond basic refreshment.

This is precisely the trap that wine platforms represent—the belief that wine purchasing is merely a friction problem to be solved with better algorithms and price comparisons. Find it, click it, sip it. No story, no discovery, no relationship. Just SKUs in a database racing to the bottom on margin.

The great flattening doesn't just happen through score inflation. It happens every time the industry treats wine as a commodity rather than as a cultural product with meaning, context, and story.

The Way Forward

South African wine sits on a remarkable foundation—world-class quality. Accessible pricing. Diverse terroirs. Winemakers pushing boundaries. A rich cultural heritage. International recognition.

But foundation isn't positioning. Quality isn't differentiation. Awards aren't meaning.

The winemakers and brands that will thrive aren't the ones collecting more stickers or chasing higher scores. They're the ones bold enough to answer different questions: Why does this wine matter? What makes our story worth telling? Who are we for, and what do we stand for?

These questions demand more than technical winemaking skill. They demand clarity about positioning—understanding where you compete and why you're distinctive within that space. They demand authentic storytelling that connects your wine to something larger than the bottle. They demand relationship-building that turns buyers into believers.

None of this is easy. It's harder than slapping a gold sticker on a bottle. It requires confidence, conviction, and the willingness to stand for something specific rather than trying to appeal to everyone.

But here's the truth the great flattening reveals: when excellence becomes ubiquitous, only meaning differentiates. When everyone can make technically beautiful wine, only story and positioning create preference. When scores become noise, only authentic connection cuts through.

The Choice Ahead

The wine industry stands at an inflection point. One path leads deeper into commodification—more scores, more stickers, more algorithmic shopping, more price competition, more sameness. It's the path of least resistance, and it ends with wine becoming just another widget in someone else's marketplace.

The other path leads toward meaning—distinctive positioning, authentic storytelling, genuine relationships, and wines that stand for something beyond points. It's harder. It demands more. But it's also the only path that preserves what makes wine culturally significant rather than merely consumable.

South African wine has consistently delivered high-quality results. The scores prove it. Seven hundred excellent wines prove it.

Now comes the harder question: what happens next? Will we hide behind stickers, or will we step forward with stories worth telling and positions worth holding?

The Great Flattening has arrived. The only way out is up—toward meaning, distinctiveness, and wines that matter beyond the number on the bottle.

The choice is ours.

A note for 2026: I'm exploring a handful of sponsorship partnerships with organisations that share a commitment to independent wine industry thinking. Interested? Email me.  

Mike Carter is a Wine Futurist based in Cape Town, South Africa, who believes the path to future success isn't found in perfect predictions but in perfect positioning. Want to dive deeper? Download his complimentary book Master Positioning, or connect on LinkedIn for more contrarian thinking about wine's future.