The cunning plan of WOSA – Wines of SA, the exporter’s deep-throat – for the London Wine Trade Fair, focuses on pods. 25 pods will be used to display 12 wines each on a self-serve basis to wine buyers and journalists in London. By plumping for pods, WOSA are being unusually timeous as pods, either alien in origin or the result of atomic radiation, are in the public mind given the nuclear doomsday unfolding in Japan, home of Godzilla.

Is this what a WOSA pod will look like?

Pods featured in the 1956 classic Invasion of the Body Snatchers where they took over humans, turning them into zombies without emotion. 26 sterile pod names are offered by WOSA and eyebrows are raised that SA’s sexiest appellation, the Swartland, is conspicuous by its absence. I mention Swartland with some trepidation as troublemakers trawl the red herring that by owning a farm in the appellation, I have somehow sacrificed my much vaunted Indy status. Total rubbish – after five years in the Siebritskloof I have yet to sell a bottle of wine and the few grapes I grow mostly end up at the Swartland Co-op – a producer I have yet to write about.

Swartland Independent secretary Chris Mullineux explains the lack of Swartland pods: “The organization is still in a development phase: The wineries are still in the process of signing up. Wineries and wines need to be audited, the packaging of each of the participants must be finalized, etc, before we can properly represent.”

Another surprise is the high cost of WOSA pods: R3000 per wine charged to producers. Quite why exporters have to pay twice is not explained as they already shell out 7.6c a litre for bulk wine and 10.45c a litre for bottled wine into WOSA’s capacious coffers. Perhaps the money is used on first and business class airfares for the CEO and pints for the beer & biltong function to launch the pods. At £3 a pint in London, no wonder WOSA has to charge twice!