In Slow Train Coming, 70-something Minnesotan Bob Dylan warns “in the home of the brave, Jefferson turning over in his grave/fools glorifying themselves, trying to manipulate Satan…” Well a slow plane eventually landed and deposited Dave Jefferson, another 70-year old Minnesotan, at I Love My Laundry last night (below), only one day late. His 31st visit to SA en-route to his Silkbush Vineyards in the Breede River.

Dinner at Savoy Cabbage followed, still a favourite dining out spot for Americans after rave reviews from Ruth Reichel and Frank Bruni a decade and more ago in the New York Times. Over a whole zoo of meat: kudu, warthog and wildebeest, we chewed the fat with a sleek 2010 Pinotage from Fons Aaldering and another from further down the Breede River: the Viljoensdrift 2009. Pinotage works amazingly well with game meats with robust flavours demanding palate weight and density in a wine. As for Frank’s favourite, the chicken liver parfait, there was an amazing Snow Mountain Pinot Noir 2012 from James McKenzie, yet another exhibit in the evidence line-up that Pinot need not be for plutocrats alone.

Dave explained his “ebony and ivory” idea of teaming up empowerment producers with wineries with less diverse ownership and taking the concept to Soweto, inviting Black Diamonds for a weekend on participating wineries. “Somehow we have to reverse the per capita decline in wine consumption” said Dave, something his namesake, fellow countryman and wine lover Thomas Jefferson, would have approved of. A project for Destiny magazine, perhaps?