The reason for the collapse of SA wine exports, as any WOSA apparatchik will tell you, is the strength of the rand against the Pound/Euro/Dollar/Zloty (chose an appropriate currency). Yet the flipside of this currency, cheap wine imports, is nowhere to be found. Invited to the Air France/KLM Salon Privée last night to reward their frequent flyers and to announce the launch of a direct Cape Town/Paris flight in November (although admittedly a bit Irish to hold it a Morrell’s marvelous boutique hotel in Northcliff) I posed this question to Daniel Lorson “a top Champagne executive” flown-in by AF/KLM “to see for himself what SA and Africa can mean to the Champagne industry in terms of growth and expansion.”

Shaun Anderson and Daniel Lorson

So where are the Salons on special? I asked. The cut-price Cattier (indeed, any Cattier apart from the excellent Ace of Spades available at the ZAR nightclub in Green Point along with naked models covered in sushi) and budget Bollinger? OK, the discount Delamotte has been done for by an unfortunate legal challenge from La Motte.

“SA needs more and more adventurous importers” agreed Daniel, before noting that he was offered a glass of bubbly for R560 in a Jozi restaurant the previous night. Perhaps nibbling Nic Dawes from the Mail & Guardian, has a point, after all. When ordering Roederer, prepared to be ripped-off.

“In France we advertize restaurants which mark up Champagne by not more than two times as Friends of Champagne so diners can visit them preferentially.” A fantastic wheeze for AF/KLM I’d have thought to sponsor a sticker for restaurant wine lists and front doors, to separate those serious about shampoo from mere rip-off artistes.

As to the Salon Privée itself, it looked like an Airbus A380 full of jetsetters had made an emergency landing in Northcliff, depositing a plane load of globe-trotters gobbling down oysters and cementing deals. The fizz of the evening IMHO was the Ruinart Blanc de Blanc, a choice I suspect Daniel agreed with, although he was much too diplomatic to say so.

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