Glen Howard wants to grow grapes until he dies but fears the industry might croak before he does.
The 63-year-old has tended vines on his picturesque Pokolbin property in the Hunter Valley since he was a teenager, despite the business running at a loss for the better part of the past decade, as a downturn in wine demand has led to a glut in grapes.
In the immediate aftermath of last August’s earthquake in Napa, photographs quickly circulated of shattered wine racks, toppled barrels and what looked like an endless river of spilled red wine. Many worried that the 6.0-magnitude quake would render irreversible damage to Napa Valley’s wine industry.
One year later, the local wine community as a whole is as healthy as ever.
Bubbly brought fame and fortune to Champagne, and now, since being named a Unesco world heritage site in July, the region hopes more tourists will make it a holiday destination. Same for Burgundy, whose vineyards are already a big draw – it, too, is now on Unesco’s roll of honour. The double good news marks a major gain for France, which is trying hard to make wine a pillar of its tourist economy.
Spring frosts reduced yields on both islands, but a warm, dry summer helped quality.
MaryAnn Worobiec, reporting for Wine Spectator, reports on the 2015 vintage in New Zealand.
Overall, vintners are pleased with the quality of the 2015 vintage, but there is going to be less wine to go around.
The owner of New Zealand-based Forrest Wines explains why low-alcohol New World vintages are ‘kicking ass’.
John Forrest says “there’s a huge market for products [that let] you still enjoy the fat, sugar and alcohol, but with less negative health implications. We have dropped the alcohol content in our wines from 14 per cent to 9 per cent, which means 40 per cent less alcohol and 40 per cent fewer calories”.
Australian taxpayers are giving their Kiwi cousins a whopping $70,000 a day to help them make wine.
The Federal Government has raised questions about the viability of the scheme and has established a panel of wine industry luminaries to decide the fate of the wine equalisation tax (WET) by the end of the year.
Each year global wine production creates an estimated 13 million tonnes of waste known as grape marc, or mar as the French say. It’s made up of grape skin, stems and seeds, but it doesn’t have to be waste.
Researchers from the University of Adelaide say it could become a competitive biofuel.
Six months ago Treasury Wine Estates had barely made a sale into Chinese supermarket chain, Yonghui. Now the maker of Penfold’s, Wolf Blass and Wynns counts the Fuzhou-based retailer as its largest single customer on the mainland.
Such examples made China the stand-out performer in TWE’s full year results on Wednesday, as volumes in Greater China rose 36 per cent and profits across the region were up 52 per cent.
The judges of the CCL Label Clear Image Hunter Valley Wine Show have agreed that the 2014 Hunter Shiraz vintage is one of the region’s best.
“The Shriaz classes of entry were tremendous and have set new levels of benchmark for the Hunter,” said PJ Charteris, the chairman of judges.
More than 50% of the 2014 Hunter Shiraz wines entered into the 2015 show were awarded medals.
The Italian sparkling wine prosecco has overtaken champagne for the first time in Britain, with sales far outstripping its French rival, according to research. Sales of prosecco jumped 72 per cent in value in the year to mid-July, reaching £339m (A$725m), the research company IRI found. “Prosecco is a fashionable drink that provides a cheaper and excellent quality alternative to champagne,” said IRI alcoholic drinks analyst Toby Magill.