A glorious celebration of pumpkins this morning outside Worcester on the road to Robertson.

After the WOSA/WIETA fiasco last year that saw farmers abandoned by their leaders to face Marxist firebrands advocating a R150/day minimum wage for farmworkers, alone,  many Robertson producers have decided to refuse to pay their R500 WIETA membership fee and rather spend up to R10,000 a month on private security companies to safeguard their properties.  The SA Police Service is judged to be ineffective.  Not a bad call after last week’s Oscar Pistorius bail hearing.  WOSA CEO Su Birch was among the first with the goodies on Friday afternoon, tweeting “Pistorius is granted bail.”

Full marks to WOSA for recognizing that Oscar is not great news for SA wine, although many would think wine marketers had better things to do on a Friday afternoon than follow Oscar on TV.  But all this may be about to change as a rejuvenated SA Estate Owners Association discuss withholding their WOSA export levies.  Squeezed by calls for a consumer boycott in the UK and a producer boycott at home, 2013 is shaping up as a miserable year for WOSA.  But not half as miserable as Oscar’s or the black ladies whose 10ha empowerment vineyard in Robertson was torched in the strike at the end of last year that WIETA, FairTrade and WOSA were powerless to save.