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Clarkson slams SA

Published:  23 July, 2008

Famed motormouth Jeremy Clarkson can add South Africa wine producers to the long list of groups - such as environmentalists and Vauxhall Motors - who won't be sending him a Christmas card.
In his last motoring column in The Sunday Times (which was supposed to be about the new Jaguar) Clarkson wrote that you certainly don't go to South Africa for the viniculture'.

We stayed at a vineyard and on one evening they took us to the cellar, which was full of huge steel vats and pressure gauges. It was like being in a nuclear power station. And what did the finished product taste like? Well pretty much like the stuff that comes from the outlet at Sellafield. I doubt the French would put it in their windscreen-washer bottles.'

Nick-Dymoke Marr of Orbital Wines, which owns and imports the Stormhoek brand, said I doubt it will have any effect on sales. People who read Clarkson know he knows nothing about wine. And anyway, it sounds as if the winery he visited had

all the right kit to make good modern wine.'

Sophie Waggett, marketing manager at Wines of South Africa, said she would be sending Clarkson a case of wine to change his mind'.