If the penalty for smuggling drugs into Singapore is death, then the punishment for using locally manufactured wine pourers to avoiding messing in Düsseldorf is almost as bad: attacks from German legal eagles and demands to pay “fines” to appease the copyright owner, a German inventor who holidays in Somerset West along with those millions of other European migratory birds who flock to the Cape in summer for Constantia Fresh and other Teutonic cultural festivals.

Drop Stop only @ ProWein, Ja!

One local manufacturer of knock-off “dropless discs”, Sterling Promotions, (the German patent is not registered in SA and local discs are legal in Stellenbosch) has written to customers in a panic: “Please be aware that a representative from “Drop Stop” (the Patentee) may unsuspectingly ask or request a sample of your Dropless disc from your exhibitor (even if not in use at the expo) for his own personal use or in exchange for a “Drop Stop”, under NO circumstances must you hand them out. This was the tactic used during the 2010 Prowein Expo, where some clients were not using the disc, but were asked if they had some available, whereby they obtained the branded samples as evidence.”

Producers who surrendered their discs are now being hounded by a pack of Rottweiler lawyers with dire threats unless they cough up serious cash. Adding yet another expense to the already fraught obstacle race called exporting wine to Europe.