Constellation commit to South Africa

At the first day of the annual generic South African tasting in London it was a bit spooky the way that Bruce Jack of Flagstone suddenly materialised by my side at 5pm, expiry of the embargo on news of his extraordinary deal with Constellation, the world's biggest wine company.

Constellation acquired the South African brand Kumala almost by default when they finally managed to buy the dominant Canadian company Vincor, as reported here. Since which time their intentions in South Africa have been anywhere but clear.

Turns out that they were within a hair's breadth of finalising a deal whereby...