Grape prices have plummeted in some of the flood-affected wine producing regions of south-west NSW. Now that the water has receded, growers are back in their vineyards trying salvage what’s left of the vintage. Kristy Bartrop, from the Riverina Wine Grapes Marketing Board, says farmers are getting a fraction of what they would have been paid before the floods, reports ABC Rural.
It’s hard to imagine that Kinloch Wines in Victoria’s Boorolite Valley was developed as recently as 1996. Business brains Malcolm and Susan Kinloch successfully transformed their property from back block to boutique winery, complete with 4ha of vines, Mediterranean-style home and cellar door and cafe, after leaving their careers in commerce. When the couple arrived at the property, named Kainui, it had a basic home and hay shed and was running cattle, reports Weekly Times Now.
Viticulturist Michael Wilson says that he never gets sick of eating his own winegrapes. The skins are thick and the grapes are full of pips, but Mr Wilson said you can’t beat the tropical fruit flavour of Sauvignon Blanc, the citrus tang of Riesling and the fresh fruit flavours of Pinot Noir. The flavours and their intensity also help Mr Wilson to zero-in on the perfect date to pick. He said it was those flavours that he wanted in a bottle, not the jammy excess sugar flavour from over-ripe Pinot Noir, nor the herbaceous green pip taint of under-ripe grapes, reports The Mercury.
It’s ironic that some of Australia’s most expensive bottles of wine are unlikely to ever be drunk. Take the half bottle of 1952 Penfolds Grange Bin 4 that sold recently for $3600 (including buyer’s premium) through Theodore Bruce in Sydney. If opened it would become worthless. And, as one expert says, the drinking experience may not be worth much anyway. By now this wine would be well past its peak. The true value of such wines is as a (literally) liquid asset, reports the Sydney Morning Herald.
While the Aussie producers have not been very good at predicting the grapes in fashion a couple of decades hence, a unique grape Savagnin, the look alike of the Spanish variety Albariño could be the next big thing in white winegrapes, writes our guest writer Dan Traucki, a wine consultant and writer from South Australia who shares his vision with Indian Wine Academy.
Wine critic Robert Parker has hinted that Neal Martin could replace him as Bordeaux critic at The Wine Advocate but not “for at least five years”, reports The Drinks Business. In the second part of an interview conducted by Liv-ex, Parker responded to a question about his future successor as Bordeaux critic by saying: “I don’t think you have to worry for at least five years! I obviously have the young Englishman Neal Martin on my team. He is very talented and he gets better every year.”
Wine Marlborough is offering a member of the UK wine trade a chance to spend up to six weeks studying the New Zealand wine industry. Called the John Avery Scholarship, the award is part of the New Zealand-UK Link Foundation, designed to further connections between the two countries. The recipient will be awarded flights to New Zealand and an all expenses paid 3 to 6 week-long stay in Marlborough to study the region, reports The Drinks Business.
John Buck, OBE, Chairman of Te Mata Estate Winery, is the 2012 inductee to the New Zealand Wine Hall of Fame. His selection was announced at a glittering black tie dinner at Auckland’s ASB Showgrounds on Saturday night, reports Voxy News. His award was presented by the Chairman of The Hall of Fame Trust, Michael Brett, who said “John Buck has made notable contributions to the New Zealand wine industry. His Te Mata Estate has been the standard bearer for New Zealand. In Coleraine, he has produced, year after year, a wine that brings international acclaim both to Te Mata and the New Zealand industry.”
The Marlborough wine industry is the most optimistic about trading conditions out of the country’s seven wine regions, according to a national business confidence wine survey. The biannual report by accountancy firm Markhams said that more than half of Marlborough respondents believed that trading conditions were better than a year ago, with 92 per cent expecting conditions to improve or remain the same. In line with last year’s predictions, 33 per cent of respondents stated that conditions had remained the same, while 13 per cent said they had worsened, reports The Marlborough Express.
The Vermentino white wine variety is ideally suited to handle Australia’s changing climate and consumer palates, according to winemaker Brown Brothers, which is continuing to experiment with alternative varieties at its winery in Milawa, Victoria. Executive director Ross Brown told TheShout that with 80,000 visitors to the winery every year, Brown Brothers considers its cellar door customers to be a valuable market research base, reports The Shout.