The cunning plan of WOSA to turn Cape Wine 2012 into a “green event” when flying plane loads of luvvies to Cape Town will make the entire industry carbon budget look like Lehman Brothers last financial report, has been revealed. “Delegates were being accommodated within walking distance of the exhibition and would offset their flights by buying indigenous trees for planting the Winelands.” Forests, a vote of confidence in the vine (not) and highlighting the inconvenient truth that vitus vinifera is an alien invader in the Winelands.
But who will pay for these forests, I wonder? Those “delegates” lucky enough to warrant a business class ticket on BA, an airline which has just released their Olympic menus?
BA rebrand their planes to fit in with WOSA green agenda
Winemakers who fly la-la class (as cabinet minister Lulu Xingwana charmingly refers to economy on SAA) will be happy to know their business class guests will enjoy “a starter choice of golden beetroot, with goat’s cheese and elderflower dressing, or (depending on the month), smoked salmon and Cornish crab roulade with servruga caviar gribiche sauce and summer cress salad, smoked salmon tartare with pickled cucumber ribbons radish salad and crème fraiche, or Gin & Tonic cured smoked salmon.” Gin & Tonic salmon will surely be on the menu for WOSA management who don’t really like wine, judging by their beer and biltong reception in London last year at the London Wine Trade Fair.
Even habitual BA first class passengers like Gerard Holden of Holden-Manz fame may wish to downgrade as the Olympic grub at the pointy end is somewhat less than stellar: “starter of rillette of mackerel dressed on a pickled cucumber carpaccio with sour dough croutes, followed by a main of potted braised beef, with a potato and horseradish topping served with hispy cabbage, baby carrots and roasted shallots with a rich jus. Dessert is a chilled chocolate fondant with a salted caramel liquid centre, caramel sauce and spun sugar topped with hazelnuts.” All that cabbage and pickled cucumber sounds like a recipe for flatulence!
Hispy cabbage indeed – it’s hispi cabbage, as I’m now a food expert after 45 minutes of MasterChefSA last night. And as for Vindaba, yesterday’s WOSA press release signs off “to co-incide with Cape Wine 2012, a partnership of South African tourism bodies, working in concert with the wine industry, will host Vindaba, a trade exhibition of the country’s impressive range of wine tourism offerings. Presented during the same period and also at the CTICC, the initiative involves SA Tourism as well as the various Wine Routes, Cape Town Tourism, Cape Town Routes Unlimited and the Department of Finance, Tourism and Economic Development of the Western Cape.”
Alas for WOSA, Cape Town Routes Unlimited shut up shop last month. Let’s hope this does not leave a hole in WOSA’s budget and the R1 million “green tie” launch party is fully funded.
