Pinotage for Plovdiv

The news that next year’s Concours Mondial de Bruxelles goes down in Plovdiv comes as no surprise given the unexpected presence of burly Bulgarians and buxom Balkan beauties in Jesolo this weekend at the 22nd Concours. Shifting the competition East is one way for the EU to retaliate against Mr. Putin for his Ukrainian adventures which has seen Russia stop all agricultural imports from Bulgaria. As Russia took over half of all Bulgarian wine exports, clearly new markets are urgently needed.

SA has a long history of co-operation with Bulgarian wine dating back to the dark days of Apartheid when SA bulk wine was exported to Sofia to be rebranded Product of Bulgaria and sold as sanctions busting bevvies. And very good it was too, for this was in the salad days of 12.5% alcohol before the bowties, barkers, hacks and shills persuaded SA producers to pimp themselves as a cheaper alternative to Australia. And look where that has brought us.

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Meanwhile eyebrows flew off the Richter scale at Tibetan speed with the news that the SA judge at the upcoming Concours de Sauvignon is the former panel chairman of the First National Blanc Top Ten Sauvignon Competition who was dropped from the panel last year by the Sauvignon Blanc Interest Group. Is there a power struggle for the soul of SA Sauvignon between the SBIG and the Concours de Sauvignon? Perhaps some feedback from SBIG would be useful as it seems dodgy characters with dubious commercial connections are pulling strings…