The big wet has set Hunter winemakers some dangerous hurdles to clear in the next six weeks as vineyard battles mount to stop damaging diseases attacking the growing fruit. Like their farming colleagues in the Upper Hunter whose quality wheat has been downgraded to stockfeed, Hunter vignerons must manage mildew, bunch rot and other moisture-borne diseases that threaten their yields and financial returns. November was a record wet month, with Cessnock drenched in 160 millimetres of rain, reports The Newcastle Herald.

Laughter and the sound of clinking glasses of wine filled the restaurant at Ballandean Estate on Saturday as 60 visitors enjoyed lunch at the winery. Yet only 100m away, the large shed that once stored 150,000 bottles of wine lay smouldering. The Puglisi family said the difficult few days had been made easier by the flood of support they received from the local community, as well as loyal Ballandean Estate wine drinkers, reports Warwick Daily News.

What’s the trick of making great Pinot Noir? Letting Mother Nature call the shots. “The trick, in my humble opinion — and I learned this working in Burgundy — is not to force the wines to be something they don’t naturally want to be,” said Theresa Heredia, winemaker of Freestone winery. Heredia is the winemaker behind our wine-of-the-week winner, the Fogdog, 2009 Sonoma Coast Pinot Noir at $35, reports Press Democrat.

The poor quality of the majority of low-alcohol wines in the UK is preventing consumers from making repeat purchases or trying other brands, according to Banrock Station. Neil Marolia, brand manager of Banrock Station, told The Drinks Business that while there is an ever-growing number of consumers who are looking for healthier products, the low-alcohol wine category was being damaged by a lack of investment in its image and quality.

In a move to guarantee that Prosecco buyers and consumers are “getting the real thing,” the Prosecco D.O.C. of Italy (Consorzio Tutela) has approved adding seals on Prosecco bottle tops as a guarantee that what’s inside the bottle is indeed Italian Prosecco. The seals will be added to Prosecco bottles coming from Italy starting January 1, 2012, reports Wine Business.

There is an unquenchable thirst for more knowledge of the world’s wine regions among Asians. According to Jennie Mack, managing director of the Asia Wine Service & Education Centre, there is still room to grow wine education in the region. In an interview with The Drinks Business, Mack said there was “still a lot of potential in Asia for education” and a “thirst” to know more from her students and greater knowledge surrounding wine as just a drink.

It’ll hardly rip anyone’s knickers to know that wine is a great partner for all sorts of practices. Take the pairing of wine with cheese; the French have been doing that for centuries. We Kiwis have been doing it ever since someone impaled a cube of cheddar with a toothpick and stabbed it into an upside-down orange. Wine and food pairing is so common that wine competitions now award extra medals to wines whose flavours favour a multitude of meals, reports The Wairarapa Times Age.

There are a number of reasons why the NSW South Coast isn’t a renowned wine region, but one local vigneron is painstakingly and effectively dispelling all of them. Growing wine grapes on the South Coast of NSW is a job so consistently difficult, the fact Ben Willis and his family have done it so well is a feat of agricultural brilliance, reports ABC News.

Large quantities of wine were lost when a raging fire ripped through a shed at Ballandean Estate Wines, at Ballandean, south of Stanthorpe, early Friday morning. A spokeswoman for the Queensland Fire and Rescue Service said crews were called to the winery on Sundown Rd about 3.40am. The arrived to find the 30m by 40m shed, which was filled with wine bottles and machinery, ablaze. Business manager Robyn Puglisi-Henderson said the fire had destroyed five years worth of stock, reports The Courier Mail.

Walter Clappis has been to China more than a dozen times, promoting his wines and forging relationships with local distributors. It is that sort of dedication which was yesterday rewarded, with his Hedonist Wines winning Wine Australia’s George Mackey Memorial Trophy for its 2009 The Hedonist Shiraz. The wine, which was made by Mr Clappis, his youngest daughter Kimberly and James Cooter, was selected from more than 14,500 competitors for the trophy, reports Adelaide Now.