(BusinessDay) - WINE is about a social situation; it’s a lubricant for cultural development, and a civilising force." Hearing wine described this way — by Tom Cannavan, Scotland’s only full-time wine writer and judge, at the Grande Roche in Paarl where he was one of the international judges for the Old Mutual Trophy Wine Show — I feel compelled to take another slug. It turns out he’s right. And so the conversation continues. It’s his fourth time in South Africa; his first was 11 years ago and he’s seen the wine industry here "change dynamically and quickly". And how we compare to other new world wines doesn’t elicit the usual reply of international judges. "Well, you’re certainly in the southern hemisphere, but are you really ‘new world’? You’ve got the new-world climate but this is an old industry. However, post-apartheid I feel it really has a new vision."