Sir George Fistonich, owner and managing director of Villa Maria Estate, one of New Zealand’s top wineries, is a winemaker known throughout the world. From California to Chile, from the supermarkets of London to Dublin and beyond, Villa Maria wines are renowned for their quality. It is exactly 50 years since George Fistonich founded the Villa Maria winery in Auckland. It has been 50 years of growing success, of enormous commercial success and a business that is one of the best anywhere in New Zealand, reports The New Zealand Herald.

Te Pa means home for the MacDonald family of Marlborough and the new wine label’s first release has been given a bit of a homecoming by wine critics. Te Pa is the brainchild of proprietor Haysley MacDonald, whose family’s Wairau Bar vineyard was created to supply grapes to several larger wine companies. The wine label was named Te Pa because that was the name the family gave to their 250 hectare home, reports The Marlborough Express.

Top merchant Berry Bros & Rudd says environmentally-friendly wines are proving less popular with consumers – biodynamic wine sales fell 54% in 2011 and organic wine sales dropped 63% on 2010. But Berry’s saw strong sales from Champagne – up 17% by volume and 41% by value on 2010; while Prosecco sales soared by 28% in terms of volume and by 37% in value on 2010, reports Harpers Wine & Spirit.

British Prime Minister David Cameron has risked the ire of the drinks industry by suggesting he could follow Scotland’s lead and introduce a minimum price for alcoholic drinks in England. Leading drinks and pub companies have reacted with fury to revelations in The Daily Telegraph that Cameron has ordered officials to develop a scheme in England to stop the sale of alcohol at below 40p to 50p a unit, reports The Drinks Business.

The Scottish Parliament is gearing up for a legal battle over its controversial plans to introduce minimum pricing for alcohol. Responding to a question from Labour MSP Kezia Dugdale, Health Secretary Nicola Sturgeon told a Holyrood committee that it was ‘almost certain’ that the plans will be challenged in the Scottish courts, reports Decanter. ‘Any piece of legislation that this parliament passes is potentially subject to legal challenge,’ she said.

Tourism operators in Margaret River say they have had record crowds during Christmas and New Year, despite devastating bushfires in the area. The fires destroyed 41 properties and tore through 3,400 hectares of bush when a Department of Environment and Conservation prescribed burn got out of control in late November, reports ABC News.

Unless the global and U.S. economies weaken, wine industry experts predict 2012 could be the year of the vineyard, considering a number of fine wine producers have worked through ample inventories, wine sales continue to grow and few new vines are going into the ground, reports North Bay Business Journal.

The Hobart City Council is chasing State Government money to help fund major events next summer. The Taste food and wine festival in Hobart and the Falls music festival at Marion Bay are each seeking about $300,000 a year to help the events remain viable. Lord Mayor Damon Thomas says the Government does not contribute to the week-long Taste festival, which is held each year on Hobart’s waterfront. He says Hobart ratepayers should not have to foot the bill alone and he will be lobbying Government to contribute $1 million over the next three years, reports ABC News.

A poor flowering could lower the yield of the region’s flagship Sauvignon Blanc vines. New Zealand Winegrowers chairman Stuart Smith said flowering was very slow this season due to cooler weather. That would reduce this season’s yield and also hurt the following year’s productivity, as it sets up the fertility of the vines a year in advance, he said. Smaller yields would be a bad thing for individual growers, but could be positive for people who did not have a contract for their grapes, reports The Marlborough Express.

Regular consumers of sparkling wine in the UK would rather drink English sparkling wine than Champagne, says a new report. The nation’s domestic bubbly is enjoying ‘phenomenal’ growth and rapidly entering the mainstream, according to the new figures, which suggest that most sparkling wine consumers in the UK have tried it at least once. Meanwhile, the total market for sparkling wine in the UK has grown by two-thirds in only four years, bucking the trend of economic gloom and slowing growth in the still wine category, reports Decanter.