I’m afraid I’m with ViniPortugal on this one.  The Portuguese WOSA (but with better looking employees) has stopped paying appearance fees to UK supermarkets.  So one of their number, Majestic, is demanding 5% directly from producers, effectively cutting out the middle men.  Off License News reports a terse e-mail to Portuguese suppliers “We have calculated the cost of this lost funding based on current volumes by product and cost price.  Unless the generic body reverses this decision in the next fortnight, we will be invoicing each supplier equal to 5% of your cost price on all orders received after January 1, 2012 in order to recoup this lost support. I accept that this will not be popular.  You have the option to withdraw your listing from Majestic if you are unable to agree to this.”  Sounds like good old Al Capone-style extortion to me.

The clamour from the UK’s rent-a-crowd of wine writers and bloggers has been deafening, NOT.  Probably as most of them seem to be on a well-paid jaunt in balmy St. James, judging the hilariously misnamed Top 100 SA Wine Awards.  Up to now they have done a good job of dodging the well-trained great whites hired by the competition’s many detractors and competitors.  An identikit likeness of one by UK “con” artist Damien Hirst, is shown below – or is this perhaps the wine buyer for Majestic?

But why does Portugal battle for shelf space in the UK when they have such fabulous brands as Dikas and Fagote as my friend in the Douro, the Portuguese agent for that popular brand of Italian “bathroom paper” Foxy Asso, pointedly reminds me.  Actually, FA is more of a kitchen towel than loo paper and I do hope Diners Club, who run the most credible wine competition in SA, decide to use it to brighten up the tastings in which I participate.

The day after the Majestic story broke, the commercial director died, aged 48.