Soon to be WOSA ex-CEO Su Birch is now playing Samson in Sweden, attempting to pull down the temple of SA wine around her ears. She tweeted yesterday “good meeting at Systembolaget today. They are pleased that Vinpro is again supporting the Wieta audits. So is WOSA!” Pity that many farmers disagree or would if their representative body Vinpro gave them the promised chance to discuss Wieta and its role in last year’s suicidal farmworker strikes and to vote on a resumption of business as usual. Does Systembolaget realize they are being played for patsies?

Su is no stranger to kamikaze politics, having been largely responsible for setting up Wieta in the first place as her own personal political powerbase instead of negotiating terms with Fairtrade, the international ethical trading organization that shifted 6.5 million litres of wine in 2011 and sold £1.6 billion worth of products in the UK last year alone. Heck Harriet Lamb, CEO of Fairtrade, was not even invited to Cape Wine 2012 last year!

When it comes to UK travel, seems that WOSA lavish their largesse exclusively on vinous vampires who fly south in business class, like counter-seasonal swallows, to classify SA into pompous Bordeaux-style categories. An irrelevant classification they then attempt to sell back to producers who paid for their many rounds of golf at R180 a pop. What a scam!