Tim James

Tim James lives in Cape Town. He has a PhD in English literature but no respectable ambitions or full-time job—leaving more time for wine matters (et cetera). With a home base at grape.co.za, he has been a taster and associate editor for the Platter Guide for many years, writes freelance for various local and foreign publications, and is wine columnist for the national weekly Mail & Guardian. Of the three South African Wine Writers’ Annual Awards given so far, he has received two.

What next will be new out of Africa

The Oxford Companion to Wine ventures a trenchant opinion  on the quality of wine possible from “the dull Colombard grape” (big  in the Charentes for Cognac and farther south, where it makes Vin de Pays des Côtes