Take a hard-nosed investment banker out of the toughest business environment there is and transplant him to the gentler, quirkier world of winemaking, and what do you get? Some great wine but not, as yet, a clear idea of how to make a consistent profit.

As one of the founders of FirstRand, one of South Africa’s most successful merchant banks, G.T. Ferreira was used to ROE, meaning return on equity. “But in the wine industry ROE means return on ego,” he says. “That is absolutely all you get.”