Just days after the acquisition of Diageo Chateau & Estates, Treasury Wine Estates announced they have been granted exclusive importing rights in USA for Côtes de Provence Rosé producer, Château Minuty. Owned by the Matton-Farnet family, Château Minuty is regarded as the top producer of Côtes de Provence rosé in the Côte d’Azur region. Château Minuty is currently one of the best-selling rosé brands in the United States growing at an astonishing rate over double-digits.

The 35th New Zealand Annual Trade Tasting, to be held in London on January 18, will be a celebration of Sauvignon Blanc, the country’s signature varietal. Over 500 wines from some 90 producers will be available to taste at the event, which is the world’s largest international tasting of New Zealand wines.

One of New Zealand’s largest wine companies has been given the green light on a $50 million expansion project that will see it double production at its Marlborough winery. A panel of commissioners approved an application that will allow Constellation Brands New Zealand to increase production at Drylands winery on Hammerichs Rd, north of Blenheim, from 20 million litres a year to 40 million litres. To do so, the company will install a new “tank farm”, car parks, waste treatment area, laboratory and staff building.

On Australia Day 2016, former archaeologist Aidan Menzies will begin winemaking at Deakin Estate, having just secured permanent residency. Aidan Menzies qualified as an archaeologist at the University of York, before deciding it was not the career for him, reasoning “Archaeology was slow going. Not like Indiana Jones or Time Team. Lots of bright coloured woolly jumpers and too much cider for my liking.”

IT’S a vision 36 years in the making, and soon the largest family-owned vineyard in the Coal River Valley will open the only “Peter Rabbit” garden outside the United Kingdom. Riversdale Estate at Cambridge, under the guidance of Ian and Wendy Roberts has come a long way from a sheep and grazing property to a 38ha vineyard. Mr Roberts said the vineyard had a unique microclimate and produced single-vineyard wines.

Robe and Mount Benson wine regions in South Australia’s south-east are welcoming double their usual number of tourists this summer. According to the region’s vigneron association, fires on the Great Ocean Road in Victoria, which destroyed 116 homes and diverted countless tourists, is a possible cause. Mount Benson and Robe are boutique wine regions and lesser known than the south-east’s much celebrated Coonawarra.

The first works as part of Rutherglen’s $1.8 million revitalisation project will begin in just two months. The project was confirmed in December when Indigo Shire won $900,000 in federal funding from the national stronger region’s fund. When complete, the town will have new pathways, trees, street furniture and car parks to transform Rutherglen into a premiere wine destination for tourists.

WINE GRAPE GROWERS AUSTRALIA (WGGA) has announced the appointment of Andrew Weeks as incoming executive director, commencing the new role in February. Most recently employed as business manager at Riverland Wine, Weeks has previously worked in various technical and vineyard management roles including senior viticulture officer with CCW Cooperative Limited.

Chinese wines will be under the spotlight next month in as wine critic heavyweights, Jancis Robinson MW, Bernard Burtschy of France’s Association de la Presse du Vin (APV) and Ian D’Agata of Vinitaly will judge a total of 100 hopefuls before nominating their top 10. Organised and co-hosted by Chinese wine educator, TasteSpirit and the Shanghai Morning Post, the Chinese Wine Summit aims to promote Chinese wine nationally and also outside of the Mainland.

Wine bottle labels routinely misrepresent the alcohol concentration of their contents. Thanks to a recent article in the Journal of Wine Economics, you may have already seen this news in the popular press. Julian Alston and the other four authors of Splendide Mendax (the splendid title of that splendid article) crunched a bunch of statistics and found, A) that climate change alone doesn’t seem to explain rising wine alcohol levels, and B) rising wine alcohol levels are actually more dramatic than wine labels indicate.