The annual grape picking harvest is traditionally a busy time for local backpacker accommodation providers. The Hunter Valley YHA in Nulkaba and Bottlebrush Backpackers in Cessnock were both at full capacity last Friday, as was the Wine Country Caravan Park at Nulkaba, with backpackers keen to make a bit of cash on their travels. Most are European, with England, France, Germany, Italy and Spain among the nations represented, reports the Cessnock Advertiser.

Philosophical differences have caused the Australian part-owner of Martinborough’s Te Kairanga and several other New Zealand wineries to pull out of the venture. Wineinc, owned by Australian Bruce Clugston, has sold its 5.12 per cent share in FFW Holdings NZ to majority shareholder Foley Family Wines. Foley now wholly owns the New Zealand firm. The Overseas Investment Office approved the sale last month, reports Business Day.

It sounds like a wine lover’s dream day. To taste about 80 of Hawke’s Bay’s finest wines all in a sniff and a sip in under eight hours. But for the judges of the bi-annual Regional Wine Selection it is demanding and at the end of the day vital in providing a selection geared to be tasted by visitors from all over the world. And besides, while the three judges for this year’s leading line-up got to savour the rich aromas and taste the many varied flavours they did not allow those drops to go any further than the taste buds in their mouths, reports Hawke’s Bay Today.

The community was the big winner with three festivals held at venues around the Tasman district last Sunday. An estimated 2000 people attended the annual Brightwater Wine and Food Festival at Grey’s Vineyard, about 4000 were at the Sarau Festival in Upper Moutere and more than 600 people attended the Summer Food Fare in Collingwood. The region’s finest wines and beers, a mouthwatering range of food stalls and cooking demonstrations and top class music all contributed to a great day out at all three venues, reports Nelson Mail.

A former Department of Agriculture and CSIRO food research scientist believes he can help local grapegrowers to expand amid tough times in the wine industry. Mudgee man Kevin Scott said the region’s grapegrowers should consider shifting from wine to table grapes. He is not calling for all winegrapes to be grafted but rather an experiment that may offer a positive alternative, reports the Mudgee Guardian.

Every harvest is important to the team at Ballandean Estate Wines, but there is a lot more than usual riding on the 2012 vintage. Last December fire ripped through the storage shed at the historic winery, ruining more than $1.5 million worth of stock. At the beginning of this week the team at Ballandean started harvesting the next vintage of grapes which Leeanne Puglisi- Gangemi hopes can restore stocks at her family’s winery, reports The Chronicle.

Winegrape growers in north-west Victoria are expecting to harvest some of the best quality fruit in years over the next few weeks. Murray Valley Winegrowers’ Dennis Mills says fruit has ripened quickly due to favourable weather conditions and the harvest is likely to reach full swing this week. However, Mr Mills says yields and prices do vary, with some crops producing 20 to 30 per cent less fruit than expected, reports ABC News.

I approached the bottle with trepidation, because it wasn’t a pretty sight. On one side of the slightly scuffed label was a brownish-red stain – the cork from another bottle elsewhere in the cellar had obviously “given up the ghost”. On the capsule was the catalogue number 642. I was about to open a bottle of Wither Hills Marlborough 1997 chardonnay and to be honest, didn’t hold out much hope for its drinkability. The problem with cellaring wine is that we all become hoarders and hate breaking into our stashes. Sometimes, an extra year or two can be a year or two too long, reports The Marlborough Express.

The 15-year-old Harvest Hawke’s Bay Food and Wine Festival has been dropped from the tourist calendar leaving the province without a major event showcasing its produce this summer. Hawke’s Bay Tourism is meeting today with food and wine groups to begin talking about a new event which could be held next summer season, before the end of 2012, reports The New Zealand Herald.

GST (growing season temperature) may be the climatic index of choice for viticulturists. Pioneering cool climate viticulturist Dr Andrew Pirie, of Tamar Ridge, revitalised GST as a single measure offering a refined definition of cool climate at the opening session of the 8th International Cool Climate Symposium in Tasmania. Pirie tested some of the current climate indices by trialling how successful they are in Tasmania, no easy task in a complex viticultural environment, reports The Drinks Business.