It’s a wine tasting like no other I’ve experienced. For a start there is Sheila Hlanjwa. About 5ft 4in and with a smile just as wide, she’s a one-woman Xhosa-speaking ball of energy whose sales technique goes: “Why are you drinking that whisky raa-bish when you could be trying my Lathithá wine? Come on, buy a bottle right now – or else!”

We are in Gugulethu, a South African township on the fringes of Cape Town and home to around 340,000 people. It’s about 30 minutes’ drive and one billion light years from the swanky vineyard estates of Stellenbosch and Franschhoek. There has been a murder every two or three days here for the past five years, though in daytime it is generally safe to visit and does not look like a shantytown at all – just a dowdy suburb of small, neat dwellings. We are standing outside the area’s most famous restaurant, Mzoli’s.

“This place is a township phenomenon,” Sheila tells me. “In the last year or two white people have started coming – its fame is spreading.”

Mzoli Ngcawuzele himself shows me his own brand of rosé. “Township drinkers like the rosé,” he grins. “It’s very sweet.”

Sheila shakes her huge earrings in agreement. “When people here see wine, they say: ‘Why should I drink that stuff? It takes six bottles to get drunk!'” She roars with laughter.