London is clearly challenging Jozi as crime capital of the planet. Hot on the heels of the daring £40 million Graff diamond heist, comes the news in Harpers Wine & Spirit that crooks stole £30 000 worth of SA wine from a warehouse in Wimbledon, owned by South African Wines Online, yesterday.

“Sales and marketing director Julia Holbrook said: ‘It seems the thieves knew what they were looking for as they went straight for the wooden boxes and the most expensive wines. If anyone knows anything, or notices anything suspicious when being sold wine we urge them to contact us, as the thieves may attempt to sell them on the black-market.’ Some of the high end value wines stolen were those from producers Vergelegen, Paul Kluwer, Rustenburg, Boschendal and Warwick Wines.”

The first joke is that £30 000 would not steal you very many bottles of Château Petrus at all and the second is that if the old adage about there being no such thing as bad publicity as long as they spell your name right is true, Paul Cluver IV has double reason to call yesterday a blue Monday.

Andries Burger and Paul Cluver IV earlier this year

Meanwhile the theft of Vergelegen means that there is still demand for that farm’s products. At the press conference after the Nederburg Auction where the 2001 V was withdrawn at the last moment, the reason given by Distell head of wine Carina Gouws was that winemaker André van Rensburg had found a buyer before bidding started. Presumably at more than the R1500 a bottle reserve price of the Auction.

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