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I’m very excited to tell you that I’ll be delivering the keynote address at the 39th Nederburg Wine Auction in Cape Town, South Africa on September 7th.

Nederburg is often cited as one of the wine world’s most major auctions annually. So… no pressure… no pressure…! The 2013 auction collection includes 72 red wines, 36 white wines, one Méthod Cap Classique, eight dessert wines and 15 fortified wines, and I’m looking forward to trying them all. Anthony Barne, MW from Bonhams is taking up the slamming-down-the-hammer duties.

My keynote is tentatively titled “Hustling Wine in the land of Big Hat, No Cattle: How South Africa Can Win in the U.S. Wine Marketplace” – and I think we both know that the Cape Townians (sp?) have no idea what they’ve gotten themselves into.

I’m fortunate to be following up the previous keynote work of two friends of mine, Mike Veseth and David White, who delivered the keynote addresses at the Nederburg auction in 2012 and 2011, respectively. I’m pretty sure that both of them did so while wearing jackets and standing respectfully behind a podium, so the Nederburg attendees are in for something completely and totally different when I hit that stage. And no, I won’t be wearing platform shoes. Anyway, I’ll be touching on themes that both of those gentlemen used as cornerstones in their keynote speeches, namely the U.S. economy (mostly in how bad of a shape it really is, and what that means for future wine buying) and the changing of the guard when it comes to wine tastemaker and consumer opinion-forming (yes, Millennials, you will be get top billing in this, as a bit of a spin-off of ideas touched on during the speech about the U.S. wine market I gave while in Argentina earlier this year).

I hope that my South African cohorts are ready for a bit of well-meant tough love, because they’ve got their work cut out for them in terms of conquering the U.S. wine market, not in small part due to the fact that the only things that most American know about South Africa are District 9 and Lethal Weapon 2 (“Dip-lo-matic immunity!!!” BANG! “Just been revoked!”).

But despite that challenging starting point, the hill can, indeed, be taken. How? Well, that part gets revealed when I prance around on stage in Cape Town in September.

In the meantime… if you have thoughts on how South African wine can compete on the U.S. playing field (and that you’d like me to consider quoting in the keynote address), then, in the immortal words of KISS, shout it, shout it, shout it, shout it out loooooud!

Cheers!