Rosebank, Johannesburg and Oud-Zuid, Amsterdam both have restaurants called Sophia, dedicated to the Italian icon of the silver screen. But that’s where the similarities end. Sophia SA is comfort Greek cuisine; Sophia A’dam, French tapas (foie gras, sweetbreads) with a bow to the east (Peking duck) prepared in one of those open-plan all-singing, all-dancing celebrity show-off stainless steel kitchens. The Rosebank wine list is predominantly SA; in Oud-Zuid, anything but, despite the Dutch drinking 2 bottles of New World for every 3 of Old.

“It’s the fallout from Mururoa” remarks Peter from wine importer Great Grapes. “We Dutch are very moralistic and wouldn’t drink French wine after their nuclear tests.” “Yes, I was called an Afrikaans Apartheid bitch” continues wife Marita “when I started trying to sell SA wine on the phone back in 1992 when 9/10 people would hang up as soon as they heard the accent.” “But we Dutch are becoming less liberal” lamented Peter. And the first democratic election on SA must have been good for business.

Marita at Sophia's last night

As was the social upgrading of wine drinking from “cult activity” to mainstream habit. “Our son is 18 and he drinks wine with his meals, as do his friends.” “Haven’t you got another wine list?” asked Marita “we want to push the boat out.” “What would you like to drink?” asked maître Clair Bik, planning an impromptu wine list around our orders and answers. Something hard to do in SA, given the undeniable fact that most waitrons are not wine drinkers.

So why not a sommelier exchange facilitated by WOSA (Wines of SA, the exporters’ association) or Satour (they have bigger budgets)? A three month summer sabbatical in sunny SA would appeal to North European hermits and the chance to earn Euros would be equally popular in the fleshpots of Montagu and Malmesbury. So an exchange makes total sense. Of course when the migratory European sommeliers return, it would be as Trojan Horses for SA wine for while Clair was eerste klas on the first three whites, the hard and acidic Italian red let her down. Something red, soft and sensuous from the Swartland would have been far more Sophia.

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