WELLINGTON, March 18 (Xinhua) As a sales manager and marketing director of a famous New Zealand winery, Martin Tutty had never thought that he would need to come to China so many times a year. Martin’s story, however, has also become a common experience of his Kiwi peers. Since China and New Zealand signed Free Trade Agreements (FTAs) in 2008, the Chinese market is regarded by the former as an important business engine. As such, Martin currently spends three or four months a year in China, dealing with local distributors in numerous Chinese cities.

The Cowra Wine Show Committee has announced the 2015 show will incorporate the inaugural Australian National Single Vineyard Wine Show.
As well as recognising the top wines, the viticulturists or grapegrowers of the best white and the best red single vineyard table wines will be rewarded with trophies. Russell Cody, chief judge, supported the initiative and said he was confident producers would see it as an opportunity to showcase their wonderful single vineyard wines. Schedules inviting entries to the two shows will be emailed to producers on Friday 1 May.

The B.C. government faces another trade concern over its liquor reforms. Brian Walsh, chair of the Australian Grape and Wine Authority has written to Premier Christy Clark raising objections to reforms that favour B.C. wines. Walsh stated in his March 5 letter that B.C. VQA wines had a 20.9 per cent market share last year in B.C., generating gross sales of $217 million. He noted that this was 12 per cent up from the previous year. Australia, had a 7.9 per cent market share in B.C. wine sales last year, according to his letter.

AGL Energy has rejected a call from a community group to hand-in its coal seam gas exploration licences in the Hunter Valley. The Hunter Valley Protection Alliance challenged AGL to dispose of two exploration licences covering the Broke Fordwich winegrowing region. It argues having already handed two neighbouring licences back to the state government that the company should exit the area altogether. AGL said while there are some surface restrictions, it considers there is still exploration potential for the Broke Fordwich licences.

The Australian On-Premise wine market is undergoing a once in a generation change. Listings of imports have lifted from a quarter to a third of all listings. The number of brands listed has increase by 75% in just 12 months after being fairly stable at around 2000 for the last seven years. This is according to Wine Businesses Solutions’ Wine On-Premise Australia 2015 report which has just been released this week.

Australia’s First Families of Wine Chairman, Robert Hill-Smith will lead family member representatives from Australia’s 12 foremost family-owned wineries on a US tour with trade and consumer launch events in San Francisco, May 18, 2015 and New York, May 20, 2015. Founded in 2009, Australia’s First Families of Wine (AFFW) came together to work collectively to raise the profile and provenance of quality Australian wine, at home and around the world, through fine wine and heritage tastings, consumer and trade education and industry leadership.

NAPA, Calif. – A dispute over a $1.2 million business loan may have triggered a murder-suicide that has sent shock waves through Northern California’s idyllic Wine Country. According to investigators, vintner Robert Dahl shot and killed investor Emad Tawfilis among the grapevines of Dahl’s vineyard and then led police on a chase that ended with Dahl’s suicide on a tree-covered country road. Earlier in the day, Dahl had met with Tawfilis to work out an agreement on the dispute over the $1.2 million loan.

Seventeen Chinese visitors, from the province of Ningxia, are in Marlborough on a two-day visit to learn about wine tourism. The delegation, led by Ningxia bureau of development of grape and floral industry director Kailong Cao, arrived in Blenheim on Tuesday morning. The group of government representatives and industry leaders from Ningxia are visiting New Zealand and Australia to learn how leading wine regions approach wine tourism. They hope to learn a lot from their visit to Marlborough and take the knowledge back to Ningxia, in the north of China, where China’s wine industry is based.

The cyclone brought with it heavy seas, high winds and significant rain for many parts of the region, but especially to Tologa Bay and the coastal communities north of Gisborne. Gisborne Produce Growers Association chair Ron Prebble said growers and contractors were in the midst of harvesting tomatoes, sweet corn and squash but stopped as the cyclone arrived. He said it was too early to tell the scale of the damage, but he was expecting crops up the coast from Gisborne to be hit the hardest.

A new report reveals that the prices of popular consumer goods in Australia, including beer, wine and chocolates, will increase due to the severe climate change being experienced in the country. The report, entitled Appetite for Change, was prepared by Richard Eckard and David Karoly, both of which are climate scientists from the University of Melbourne. The report looked to explain the effects of the climate change that Australia is currently experiencing.