A friend of mine was offered a column on Tyler Brûlé’s organ Monocle but turned it down after hearing the pay. A bad mistake I thought until I browsed the March edition. Colonel Gaddafi is upgraded to General and we’re told that “sales to China of Argentine wines costing more than €160 a bottle” are up 233.6%.

Meanwhile SA producers recently returned from ProWein should pack for Sao Paulo. Tertius Boshoff from Stellenrust need not bother, as SAA will surely lose his luggage again. Not a problem as Harry Potter fashions are cheaper in Rio than Stellenbosch.

Brazilian imports from Argentina were up 38.9% last year while Chile has 40% of the Brazilian market. Bubbly sales have more than doubled between 2002 and 2009 and now exceed 14.4 million litres. So if Johann Rupert decides to make bubbly in the all-singing, all-dancing cellar in Franschhoek he recently bought from Graham Beck, he should remember to print the back labels in Portuguese.