The Federal Government’s tax reform of the wine industry is squarely targeted at those producing bulk and unlabelled wine. Big retailers like Coles and Woolworths, which produce wine, will also lose the rebate. The government is currently meeting with the industry as part of its consultation into the changes.

Alibaba has launched a flagship Australian wine store through its Tmall platform, providing an opportunity for Aussie winemakers to tap into the lucrative Chinese market. Australian winemakers are set to benefit from Alibaba’s latest offering — a flagship business-to-consumer wine store offering Australian wines through the Tmall.com platform.

The growing bulk wine category now accounts for 38.6% of global wine exports, with 39.49 million hectoliters exported around the world last year. In comparison, bottled wine accounted for 54.3% of global exports and sparkling wine just 7.1% despite an insatiable global thirst for fizz. Since the year 2000 bulk wine has grown its total share of global wine exports by over 4%, from 34% to 38.6%.
Global bulk wine sales have increased by a whopping 71%, from 59.99 million hectoliters in 2000 to 102.43 million hectoliters last year.

Hawkes Bay wine company Rod McDonald Wines is the only New Zealand winery and business to win a prestigious prize in the 2016 Harpers Design Awards. The internationally recognised design awards, made up of a high calibre judging panel, received entries from ten countries around the world, with only five picking up an award.
“The standard was high, with some stunning examples of enticing and engaging design, really lifting those products above the ordinary,” said Harpers editor Andrew Catchpole. “But our brief as judges went beyond purely aesthetical considerations, looking at how well the design of each product had been tailored to the client’s brief and its target market.”

Global architectural firm The Buchan Group has uncorked its design of the Mt. Beautiful Tasting Room in Cheviot, New Zealand, aimed at introducing food and wine enthusiasts to this internationally successful, locally grown wine label. Mt. Beautiful is a premium North Canterbury wine brand grown and produced at Spotswood, nine kilometres north of Cheviot. The tasting room based in Cheviot showcases its varieties in Sauvignon Blanc, Pinot Noir, Pinot Gris, Riesling, and Chardonnay. Sympathetic to the timber-themed design of the adjoining Two Rivers Cafe, the fitout uses a blend of natural materials to reflect the environment of the vineyard.

Wine storage business Wine Ark keeps a keen eye on the two million bottles it keeps for customers to see what they’re collecting and this year, for the first time in since 2007, Penfolds Grange has lost the title of Australia’s most collected wine to its cheaper relative, dubbed ‘baby Grange’, at one-10th of the price. But luckily for Treasury Wine Estates, owners of Penfolds, it’s another wine from that portfolio – the Bin 389 Shiraz Cabernet, which sells for around $75 compared to the $750 the current 2011 vintage of Bin 95 Grange commands.

The WEA Conference and Exhibition WineEng 2016 will be held at the Serafino Winery in South Australia’s McLaren Vale region this week (September 7 and 8). The conference is a significant and unique event on the wine calendar, concentrating on many aspects of wine production and aimed at production operations personnel (winemakers, engineering and maintenance staff, bottling and packaging management, general management as well winery suppliers). The common goal for those who attend is to ensure that the Australian wine industry remains competitive both in the domestic and global markets.

Swan Valley producer Mandoon Estate has continued its stellar run at the Perth Royal Wine Show, winning three awards including best WA wine of the show, for its Frankland Reserve Shiraz 2014.
Mandoon also won the award for the most successful WA producer processing less than 300 tonnes for the fourth consecutive year. Mandoon’s Reserve Shiraz also won the trophy for the best WA red wine.

The government’s plans to crack down on tax rorts in the wine industry probably won’t cause cheap-and-cheerful plonk prices to rise, but could lead to some of Australia’s 2500-odd wineries go bust, winemakers say. Treasury Wine Estates, the country’s biggest winemaker by market value and one of the biggest by volume, has welcomed the government’s long-awaited plans to make a rebate for winemakers lower and harder to claim. But many winemakers say the government has gone too far. They will be pushing Revenue Minister Kelly O’Dwyer and Assistant Minister for Agriculture and Water Resources Anne Rushton to water down the plans.

The wine industry will soon have another tool at its fingertips to help navigate important on-farm decisions. National Wine and Grape Industry Centre (NWGIC) director, Professor Alain Deloire, from Wagga Wagga, said a smartphone app is being developed by researchers with Wine Australia at Charles Sturt University (CSU).