Wonderful newsflash from WOSA yesterday “The first 3 months of 2012 indicate a positive trend for South African wine exports. Overall export volumes are up 21% for the 3 months January to March 2012 as compared with the same period in 2011.” Although in the Afrikaans weergawe it seems to apply to packaged wine “Gedurende die eerste 3 maande van 2012 het Suid-Afrikaanse uitvoere van verpakte wyn ‘n positiewe tendens getoon.  Algehele uitvoervolumes is met 21% op vir die 3 maande Januarie tot Maart 2012 in vergelyking met dieselfde tydperk in 2011.”  Or am I missing something?

Anyway, it seems this trend could be due to tattooed wine lovers in France.  For the Huffington Post reports “People with tattoos drink more than their tattoo-less peers, a new study from France suggests.  The researchers asked nearly 3,000 young men and women as they were exiting bars on a Saturday night if they would take a breathalyzer test.  Of those who agreed to take it, the researchers found that people with tattoos had consumed more alcohol than those without tattoos, the researchers said.”

Seems that seven is the lucky number for SA wine producers as single tattoos drink the same as the un-tatted.  This is really common sense and cause and effect if you think about it, as most people with multiple tattoos were probably under the influence when they had them applied.  This is certainly the case with sailors.

Pity WOSA is not allowed to spend their R35 million marketing honey pot inside SA (with the noble exception of braii boeke and R1 million piss-ups/parties to launch Cape Wine 2012) or producers could demand a chain of WOSA-branded tattoo parlours that would achieve multiple objectives: a) increase consumption among French speakers; b) circumvent the government’s planned fatwa on alcohol advertising; c) provide lucrative employment to edgy wine label designers like Fanakolo if (b) comes to pass; d) serve as a snotklap for health Nazis seeking to control the social behaviour of adults.