Were you to bet on one thing that a chartered accountant is willing to be taken out of his or her comfort zone for, wine would be a pretty good call. If this elixir of life had inspired artists, poets, dreamers, IT-pioneers and media magnates, why not motivate a spread-sheet obsessed CA wishing to get out a bit further than the herbal tea-room and local SARS office?

Gyles Webb was not so much taken out of his comfort zone – he leapt out of it. Hailing from Kimberley where his father was an accountant for De Beers, the diamond guys, Gyles was doing accounting in Durban and drinking beer in the 1970s when there was that epiphany on which so many wine legends are made: a taste of Puligny-Montrachet, a white Burgundy and understandably epiphany-inducing.

And he leapt.

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A pub lunch can be a thing of true beauty. Simple, tasty and sustenance-giving, pub food is undoubtedly Britain’s finest contribution to international cuisine. Bangers and mash. Fish and chips. Hearty pies. Liver and onions. Steak and egg. Syrupy, spongy puddings. All served quickly without fuss or show just as you suck the froth from the second pint of keg beer.

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It has been a derogatory term bandied about for some time now. I am referring, of course, to “wine wanker”, two words referring to the type of person inhabiting the wine world who has a penchant for being snobbish, opinionated, sensitive, obsessive, manic and hysterical, as well as general holding a higher-than-thou’ attitude on the subject of wine. There is even a website – www.winewankers.com – to assist in communicating the attributes and contributions of such a type of wine-orientated individual.

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During a recent road-trip through the majestic open spaces of the South African Karoo, I was once again exposed to the fact that as a nation we have an alcohol problem that needs dealing with. It was Friday afternoon, and from the town of Laingsburg through Beaufort-West and onto the quaint historical hamlet of Richmond in the Karoo’s icy heart, a fair amount of drinking was being done – or had been committed – by the time I hit town.

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In their song “Here at the Western World”, the greatest rock band ever – Steely Dan – are welcomed “with sausage and beer”. But in the real west wine world, chances are you’ll be greeted with chouriço and Portuguese Colares wine.

Colares is the most westerly wine region in Europe. Just ocean-side of Lisbon, this is the kind of place that makes you wonder what the early wine pioneers were snorting when deciding to lay-down vines in this here godforsaken patch of earth.

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