Ray Edwards probably has South Africa's biggest bar bill. That's because he is, until the end of the month, CEO of Tops at Spar, which, with 345 stores, is the country's biggest liquor store chain.

His early retirement - he is 56 - comes at a challenging time, with Walmart rumoured to be considering massive imports of Argentine Malbec for its recently acquired Game and Makro outlets, and sales of brandy, the traditional spirit of SA, on the skids.

Edwards, a keeper of the Quaich (an eccentric Scottish drinking club whose members streak around Blair Castle avoiding the nettles) admits to being a whisky wonk himself and has seen volumes of the Scottish stuff double through the supermarket's checkouts over the past decade. He chooses Highland over Highveld as "brandy is too sweet."

As fairy godfather to the Whisky magazine and a major sponsor of the annual Whisky Live festival, his corporate sponsorships have done much to make South Africa the world's fifth-biggest market for Scotch.

On the wine scene, he championed the underdog, founding the Spar Orange River Winemaker of the Year Competition a decade ago to seek to improve the quality of offerings from South Africa's forgotten wine appellation - the five cellars of Orange River Winery with evocative names like Grootdrink, Groblershoop, Upington, Keimoes and Kakamas that is so geographically extensive, the exporters' association left them off the map "as they won't fit on it".

As a judge at said competition for the past six years, I can confirm that quality has improved beyond all recognition. Likewise, it comes as no surprise that Spar were sponsors for this winter's Gugulethu Wine Festival. While sponsoring banksters are happy to swan around Sandton and Cape Town wine shows having their rings kissed by grateful winemakers, Spar are busy in the townships, which has to be the future for SA wine sales with Europe broke and Asia ignored.

Another revolutionary Spar initiative is the 100 Women, 100 Wines competition which will see women from around the country descend on the V&A Hotel at the Cape Town Waterfront for a weekend of indulgence. Among all the pampering, they will do their day jobs of choosing wine for birthdays and book clubs, and for the boss coming to dinner. For a change, the people who buy the stuff make the choices and this must be the only competition in which producers don't get soaked via an entry fee.

The biggest buyer at the Nederburg Auction for several years, Edwards has also been a big supporter of the broader industry and he's not afraid to make difficult calls - such as withholding his wines from review by sighted wine guides until the playing fields are level.

But perhaps his biggest contribution is refusing to accept that supermarkets must be purveyors of plonk, as Spar's Olive Brook range of premium local and imported wines attests. With his drive and enthusiasm, this is unlikely to be his last round.

• Read Pendock Uncorked at http://blogs.thetimes.co.za/pendock