With guest Wine Wanker, Grace Donald from Wine is a Verb. In part 1 of her story. Grace sipped and savoured Australia’s best wines at the annual James Halliday Top 100 wine tasting, but the best was yet to come. Grace got to chat with her idol, and asked him the questions we’d all like to ask. Including what iconic wines weren’t in the top 100 and why. Let’s eavesdrop in on their conversation….
The Winemakers’ Federation of Australia (WFA) has welcomed Dräger and TransferMate as new supporters of the organisation for the coming year and they are providing special offers to WFA members. They join WFA’s business family which already includes Finlaysons, Lallemand, Amorim, IMCD, Wine Intelligence, Scholle, Arthur J. Gallagher and Bulk Energy and Winetitles.
People buy a bottle of “Napa Valley” wine with certain expectations — the biggest being that the wine is actually made from Napa Valley grapes. However, in an attempt to cash in on the cache of the Napa Valley name, some unscrupulous producers try to sell “Napa Valley” wine using grapes from other areas or even countries. “Napa Valley has had its name ripped off around the world on bottles of wine that don’t really come from here,” said Rex Stults.
Taittinger is to become the first French champagne house to produce fizz in the UK after investing in a former Kent apple orchard. The company has teamed up with British wine agents Hatch Mansfield and private investors to buy 69 hectares of farmland near Chilham and expects to fill its first bottles in five years.
Mission Estate winemaker Paul Mooney was a happy man back in May when the Jewelstone label turned gold at the International Wine Challenge competition staged in London. He was smiling again last month when Jewelstone was again read out as the winners of the Air New Zealand Wine Awards. In a way he has done the Jewelstone double – as the May gold medal was for the 2013 Jewelstone Syrah while the recent Pure Elite Gold and Trophy win was for the 2014 Jewelstone Chardonnay.
Sileni Estates has brought the glamour of 1930s Art Deco to life with the launch of the limited edition Art Deco Sparkling. The special bottling celebrates Napier, the Art Deco capital of New Zealand, and the partnership between Sileni Estates and the Art Deco Trust. “We’re excited to release this special wine which celebrates our home town. Art Deco Sparkling has lively bubbles, beautifully aromatic stone fruit flavours and nicely balanced acidity,” says Sir Graeme Avery, Sileni Estates CEO and President.
Winemakers are becoming more reliant on a good dog these days. The trend is so entrenched that books are appearing about winery dogs and their colourful backgrounds. At Murrumbateman Winery one dog, Mollie, has become so useful at welcoming visitors to the cellar door her name appears on one of the wine labels. A husky-kelpie cross, Mollie has a Facebook following, evident in the large number of dogs who attended a Christmas party at the winery on Sunday.
One of Tasmania’s smallest wineries, situated in a non-vintage area, has a unique approach to growing the pinot variety, a mainstay of most Tasmania wineries. The motto of the Motton Terraces winery could be “anything but pinot” as there are no pinot grapes on the property, unlike most other wineries in the state. The winery is situated on a bush block off the beaten track and inland from Ulverstone in the north-west.
As world leaders unite in Paris to hash out a global response to climate change, a boutique wine maker in South Australia’s Coonawarra is taking matters into her own hands. Award-winning winemaker Sue Bell of Bellwether winery said being a small winery was a distinct advantage to factoring climate change into her business plan.
MAJOR investment decisions in South Australia’s wine industry are being delayed amid warnings many growers and winemakers will face financial ruin unless the Federal Government moves quickly to overhaul the Wine Equalisation Tax Rebate. A Federal Government investigation revealed in August that the rebate system was being rorted by “virtual winemakers’’ – some of which exist solely to claim tax concessions.