When QEII was entertaining her homeboy Xi Jinping, the President of China, last week she made one huge faux pas. She served Vin de Constance 2008 with the pudding, a delice of dark chocolate mango and lime.

Many moons ago, Wine Magazine served Vin De Constance 1994 with a chocolate dessert at Catherina’s at Steenberg after one of their many wine competitions.

Which prompted one of the four berries who constituted the Grape Collective Blog of fond memory (now hijacked by Turgid Tim for public psychoanalytic needs) to fire off an email to Wine, claiming serving VdC with chocolate was “sacrilege”. Xi would have probably preferred Mao Tai with bowties and we’re not talking Wine Lizard attire here.

Which raises the perennial question. To be a serious SA wine pundit, is a bald pate or beard essential? WOSA strong man Andre Morgenthal, who pops up at most wine lunches these days, has gone the non-Isis Bearded Villains route while some like Turgid Tim, a dead ringer for Jeremy Corbyn but with less hair and teeth, goes for both looks simultaneously – a Double Gold pundit.