A battle is on for the soul of the Paardeberg. The hairy Rhone rangers were the first to ride in to reclaim this bastion of Swartland terroir for Syrah and all her blends. Hot money from Franschhoek ripped up the old Pinotage bush vines and planted Syrah, which promptly died of thirst. A bad omen. Next came the Portuguese navigators convinced that Fernao Pires and Touriga Nacional would deliver the goods. The jury is still out on that one. Meanwhile, on the other (Stellenbosch) side of the mountain, Ayama (Callie, Augusto and Attilio below) were planting Aglianico and Vermentino like crazy, claiming the place for Friuli.

At a tasting last night of Vermentino with the crunchy vegetarian Carbonara (zucchini replacing bacon) and bicolour asparagus of Michela Sfiligoi, I was convinced that the salty floral flavours of the great grape of Sardinia will be a big hit in SA. Viticulturalist Augusto notes that the terroir of North East Sardinia is similar to the Swartland and after all, Italian is the #1 style of cuisine in SA but don’t expect Eat Out magazine to recognize this until Italian restaurants lash out on expensive PR.

Am I the only one to notice the correlation between fancy PR footwork and performance at the Eat Out Awards on Sunday? It’s a total contradiction of course. If your food is any good, you don’t need to hire a PR machine to trumpet the news around town. Consumers are not as stupid as Eat Out thinks and those who shelled out R1850 for the “inedible” slop dished up at Chunder City must be doubly disappointed. Ask for your money back, whydontya?

But heck, as long as the PRs have their retainers and feed the hordes of food “writers” and “bloggers”, a jolly time is had by all. Except the consumer. Which as plunging SA export sales around the world confirm, has a nasty habit of returning to bite you in the culo.