Wine aficionados to meet in CT

As the global credit crunch continues to pummel consumers from Budapest to Boston, certain lifestyle pleasures clearly remain non-negotiable – wine for one - as Western Cape forces gird their loins to substantially improve the annual R6.75 billion turnover generated by wine tourism. A super-wine indaba gets under way on November 9. Cape Town’s dynamic mayor, Helen Zille (recently voted World’s Best Mayor), and the Cape Winelands Municipality mayor, Clarence Johnson, will host the so-called Great Wine Capitals Global Network. Some of the planet’s leading aficionados from as far as afield as Bilbao-Rioja (Spain), Bordeaux (France), Florence (Italy), Mainz (Germany), Mendoza (Argentina), Porto (Portugal), and the US’s Napa Valley, will apply their fine minds to a variety of issues. All important is furthering international wine tourism, greater economic, academic and cultural links among the wine-producing countries and certainly fostering greater appreciation of wine. Wine of South Africa’s Andre Morgenthal, who serves on the committee of the local chapter of the network, says it was unanimously agreed in 2007 to hold the event in the Mother City this year, the second time it has been accorded this distinction.