Every year, a team of around fifteen tasters works through roughly eight thousand South African wines for the Platter’s Wine Guide. In the recent 2026 edition, 316 of those wines earned five stars, Platter’s highest possible rating. Our flagship Epilogue is one of the wines that has done it more than once.
Platter’s is not a one-off award or a single critic’s opinion. It is South Africa’s own annual wine guide, running since 1980, and for the local trade it carries a weight that international reports cannot quite replicate: it is the industry judging its own.
When Epilogue scores five stars in Platter’s, it is South African tasters, working to South African standards, saying the wine belongs among the best the country makes that year.
This article explains what Platter’s Wine Guide actually is, how a five-star rating is earned, and what we can verify about Epilogue’s own run of five-star results across separate editions of the guide.
TL;DR
- Platter’s Wine Guide has been South Africa’s own annual wine guide since 1980, now published by Diners Club, with a team of around fifteen tasters assessing roughly eight thousand wines a year.
- Five stars is the top of Platter’s scale and requires a score of 95 points or higher out of 100. In the 2026 edition, only 316 wines out of thousands tasted reached it.
- Our Epilogue 2018 vintage scored 5 stars (96 points) in the Platter’s 2021 Guide.
- Epilogue has kept scoring at that level since: 97 points for the 2021 vintage in the Platter’s 2024 Guide, and 97 points again for the 2023 vintage in the Platter’s 2026 Guide.
- Platter’s sits alongside Epilogue’s Tim Atkin 100-point score as validation from both South Africa’s own wine trade and an internationally read critic.
- Epilogue received 5 stars in 2019, 2020, 2021, 2022 and in 2023.
What is Platter’s Wine Guide, and why does it matter?
Platter’s Wine Guide was established in 1980 by John and Erica Platter, and has been published every year since, making it one of the longest-running wine guides in the world.
It has changed hands twice since, most recently to Diners Club International, and is edited today by Philip van Zyl.
The 2026 edition marks his twenty-eighth as editor and the guide’s forty-sixth year.
A team of around fifteen tasters works through a potential eight thousand South African wines every year, scoring each one on a 100-point scale, a system the guide adopted in 2015.
Wines are then translated into Platter’s more familiar star rating, from zero to five, with five stars reserved for wines that score 95 points or higher. Described in the guide’s own language as “Superlative. A South African classic.”
Because it is compiled entirely in South Africa, by South African tasters, Platter’s carries particular weight with the local trade and with South African drinkers deciding what to put in their own cellar.
It is widely described as South Africa’s favourite (by South Africans) wine guide and remains a best-selling hardcover book decades after its first edition.
How rare is a five-star rating?
In the 2026 Platter’s Guide, the tasting panel worked through more than eight thousand wines, brandies, and other spirits.
Of those, 316 received five stars.
That works out to roughly four wines in every hundred tasted.
Five stars is not simply “very good.” It sits above four-and-a-half stars (“Outstanding”) and covers only the wines Platter’s is prepared to call classics.
For a wine to earn it, the tasting panel needs to find nothing to fault across every vintage they assess it in, not just once.
Boschkloof Epilogue’s five-star record
Here is what we can independently verify about Epilogue’s results in Platter’s, drawn from the guide’s own coverage and independent South African wine trade press:
- Platter’s 2021 Guide: Epilogue 2018 scored 5 stars, 96 points.
- Platter’s 2024 Guide: Epilogue 2021 scored 97 points.
- Platter’s 2026 Guide: Epilogue 2023 scored 97 points.
Across multiple editions published over a six-year span, each assessing distinct vintages, Epilogue has consistently reached 96 or 97 points.
In total, Epilogue received 5 stars in 2019, 2020, 2021, 2022, and 2023.
A single high score can be a good year.
A wine that keeps returning to the same result under a fresh tasting panel, on a different vintage, is doing something more consistent than that.
“Platter’s has been vital to South African wine’s credibility and reach. Its rigorous standards and passionate advocacy continue to showcase the quality and character that define our industry,” stated Reenen Borman.
Why a home-grown rating matters alongside an international one
Epilogue’s 100-point score from Tim Atkin MW tells the world that a British-based, internationally read critic rates the wine at the very top of his scale.
Platter’s tells a different, equally important story: that South Africa’s own tasting panel, working to the country’s own long-established standards, rates it the same way.
The two are not competing claims.
They are different audiences reaching the same conclusion from different directions.
An overseas collector deciding whether to import a case is more likely to have come across Tim Atkin’s report.
A South African buyer choosing a bottle for their own cellar is more likely to reach for Platter’s, the guide their local wine merchant, restaurant, or family have trusted for decades.
Epilogue holding its own in both is a broader form of validation than either report could offer alone.
What earns that score in the glass
Platter’s tasters are judging the same wine described elsewhere on our site: a single-vineyard Syrah from the granite soils of the Polkadraai Hills, made in small volumes and released once a year.
A five-star Platter’s result rewards a wine with nothing to fault. In Epilogue’s case, this means fruit concentration balanced against real structure. It also includes enough freshness from the cooling influence of nearby False Bay, ensuring the wine ages well rather than simply fading.
It also sits inside a small, deliberately unhurried range.
Our other reds, Cabernet Sauvignon, Cabernet Sauvignon Merlot, and the Grenache-Syrah blend Kottabos, alongside Sauvignon Blanc, Chardonnay, and a blended white, are all made by the same small team on the same farm.
Epilogue is simply the wine we hold to the highest standard before it is allowed to carry that name.
How to get hold of it
We release Epilogue once a year, typically in April, with our Loyalty Club members given first access before general release.
Given results like these, allocation-only quantities tend to move quickly once they are available.
Joining our Loyalty Club is the most reliable way to be notified when the next vintage opens for order.
Tasting the current vintage in person is also possible at our tasting room.
FAQs
What is Platter’s Wine Guide?
Platter’s Wine Guide is South Africa’s own annual wine guide, established in 1980 and now published by Diners Club. A panel of around fifteen tasters scores roughly eight thousand South African wines a year on a 100-point scale, with results translated into a zero-to-five star rating.
How many stars can a wine get from Platter’s?
Platter’s scale runs from zero to five stars. Five stars, the top rating, requires a score of 95 points or higher out of 100 and is described in the guide as reserved for South African classics.
How rare is a Platter’s five-star rating?
Very. In the 2026 edition, only 316 wines out of more than eight thousand tasted received five stars, roughly four in every hundred.
Which vintages of Boschkloof Epilogue have scored five stars in Platter’s?
We can independently confirm three: the 2018 vintage scored 96 points in the Platter’s 2021 Guide, the 2021 vintage scored 97 points in the Platter’s 2024 Guide, and the 2023 vintage scored 97 points in the Platter’s 2026 Guide.
Is Epilogue rated by critics outside South Africa too?
Yes. Epilogue’s 2021 vintage also scored a perfect 100 points from Tim Atkin MW, a British-based Master of Wine, in his 2023 South Africa Special Report, where it was also named his Red Wine of the Year.
How can I buy Boschkloof Epilogue?
We release Epilogue once a year in strictly limited quantities, with our Loyalty Club members given first access before general release. Shipping is within South Africa only.
What five stars from South Africa’s own guide is worth
An international score tells you what the rest of the world thinks of a South African wine. A Platter’s score tells you what South Africa thinks of it. Epilogue holding five stars across three separate editions of the country’s own guide, on three different vintages, is the harder of the two claims to make convincingly, because the people making it taste South African wine at this level all year, every year.
If that is the kind of consistency you want in your own cellar, join our Loyalty Club for first access when the next vintage of Epilogue is released, or shop our current range of reds and whites.