Hong Kong movie star Carina Lau yesterday launched her own online wine and champagne brand at the world’s biggest wine and spirits fair Vinexpo in southern France. Going on sale in China on the Alibaba website under the name of the Chinese-born actress are six top-end Bordeaux and four other wines from the region as well as two Moutard champagnes and a sparkling wine.
The Sydney Wine Academy has announced the arrival of Yukino Ochiai to their academic line up. Ochiai will be teaching the new Wine and Spirit Education Trust (WSET) Level 3 Sake course which was created in collaboration with Academy director, Clive Hartley. The Sydney Wine Academy – a WSET approved program provider – is one of a few select establishments in the world offering education at this level for this niche area of hospitality.
The sale of the Benziger brand to the makers of Franzia could give impetus to biodynamic wines. Ten years ago I went to one of the first biodynamic wine tastings in San Francisco. The mainstream wine media mocked it as a bunch of loons who bury cow horns filled with manure, and spend hours stirring potions by hand. There actually were some scruffy hippies in the room, with unusual tasting no-sulfite wines.
City planners have thrown their weight behind relaxing the rules on local grape content at wineries in industrial areas, and on Tuesday, the Napa City Council did the same. The council’s 4-1 vote, with Scott Sedgley dissenting, exempts wineries in industrially zoned lands from the city’s version of the requirement that wines made in the valley contain at least 75 percent Napa County-grown grapes.
A new report has revealed the increasing popularity of fine wine over the past decade, highlighting growth of 234 per cent. Commissioned by Cult Wines, a specialist in the acquisition, management and valuation of rare wines, the report by Intelligent Partnership also predicted a shortfall in production as demand for fine wine increases from wealthy buyers, particularly from China and India. Citing research from Morgan Stanley the report places current global demand at around 3 billion cases, compared to total production of around 2.8 billion.
Australia and China have signed the long-awaited free trade deal, an agreement that will supply China’s wealthy and growing middle class with quality beef and wine, enriching Australian producers. The Winemakers’ Federation of Australia (WFA) have welcomed the agreement, which will draw down existing wine tariffs to zero over four years. With the potential to add tens of millions of dollars to the Australian wine industry’s export earnings, the free trade deal has prompted WFA to reinforce the need for increased Government funding to promote Australian wine overseas.
Alongside Linda Murphy from the US, Cambridge-graduate Fongyee Walker has been chosen to join Air New Zealand’s resident wine judges, Jim Harre and John Belsham, in helping to select the one million bottles of wine served annually to its passengers. Walker has been instrumental in offering advice for international wine companies looking to tackle the Chinese market and co-runs Beijing-based Dragon Phoenix Fine Wine Consulting, China’s most successful WSET provider.
Pressure group Alcohol Action is hosting a conference on alcohol and cancer today at Te Papa in Wellington, in partnership with the Cancer Society of New Zealand. According to Alcohol Action, more than 800 New Zealanders under 80 years of age die every year of alcohol-related causes – and nearly a third of them die from a cancer linked to drink. The most common type of cancer in that category is breast cancer. The audience at the conference was told that physicians have known about the carcinogenic connection for years but say the public knows little about it.
The screwcap has permeated Australian wine culture since the first concerted effort was made at widespread adoption back in 2001. And with good reason. It’s 15 minutes into the first episode of the wine show spoof Plonk (series one screening on Stan with series 2 to debut soon) before the subject of wine closures is discussed. Plonk’s trio of viniculturally challenged protagonists have ventured to the Hunter to interview Bruce Tyrrell, only to discover that Stuart McGill has got there ahead of them.
In 1965 Sir Robert Menzies was Prime Minister of Australia, Charles Perkins led the Freedom Ride protesting against racial discrimination against Aboriginal people, and on April 20, a patent was issued to winemaker Thomas Angove’s company for the first wine cask. Since then, as the wine industry’s “Ask for Cask” promotion campaign tells us, casks have been “part of our lifestyle”.