Presumably realising that he'd taken on more than one isolated blogger (see my last post), and had made a serious mistake, Robin von Holdt is retreating fast. You can see the full text of his "public open letter" (both public AND open - wow, you can see he means business!) on his website blog. (It's a blog that doesn't allow comments, which is why I suppose he wrote it there and not on winecoza like the last one!)

"The matter", says Mr von H, "is not contributing positively to the wine industry that I respect, enjoy and promote". (The rest of us, of course, really dislike the wine industry.) It's also, of course, not contributing much to the business interests of the person that he respects, enjoys and promotes even more. (The rest of us - well, um, yes....) How he thought that suing a blogger for a bit of offensiveness would contribute positively to the wine industry, is not entirely clear.

But the solution, apparently, is for each of them to make a donation to Pebbles. When Dion does this, the competition entrepreneur will drop his lawsuit. He doesn't mention what he'll do if Dion doesn't see why he should have to do anything of the kind and thereby admit some guilt.  I suspect he'll drop it anyway - and he should also have to meet Dion's legal expenses thus far. He was the one who started the whole legal business - let him bring it to an end all by himself.

He also expresses the hope that "some of the more negative journalists won’t see this as another chance to launch yet more salvos of criticism and inflame matters further".  By negative I suppose he means those (possibly including even me) who don't like bullying tactics against journalists for pleasantly offensive remarks. By "inflaming matters", I suppose he means bringing these bullying tactics to the attention of a wider public. Sorry, Rob; 'fraid not.

As to the case where auctioneer Rael Levitt (who no doubt "respects, enjoys and promotes" the property business) is suing winery owner Wendy Appelbaum for defamation, no news yet on how that one is proceeding. Except that there have been some further serious allegations about Levitt's Auction Alliance.

Perhaps that will also fizzle out, and I'll have to revert to dull matters of grapes and wine.