So you think you’ve got this drinking business licked. If you’re on a long-term fitness program, you also might be following the Australian government’s national guidelines for alcohol consumption: no more than two standard drinks a day for healthy men and women. While those basic rules may help judge the amount of alcohol you should be drinking during the festive season – from beer to spirits – the task for wine drinkers is far more difficult due to a confusing array of labelling anomalies allowed under Australian law, reports News.com.au.

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.

Bordeaux prices could be approaching a reality check in 2012, according to experts. A Reuters report predicts that prices will stabilise or even fall in the coming year, partly because Asian buyers will moderate their spending, reports Harpers Wine & Spirit. James Ritchie of Sotheby’s said: “I think generally speaking demand in Asia has changed from ‘buy at any price’ to ‘buy at what I consider a reasonable price’.”

Americans are drinking more bubbly these days. Total consumption of sparkling wine in the United States will approach 15 million cases by the end of this year, almost eclipsing the 20-year high recorded in 1999, when sparkling sales surged in anticipation of millennial celebrations.

Georgian winemakers plan to keep their products out of the Russian market, where they have been a hit since Soviet times, as officials warn their neighbor’s World Trade Organization membership may not guarantee fair treatment. Georgia is striving to recapture the 10 percent or more economic growth it achieved before losing a five-day war with Russia in 2008 and may benefit from renewed wine sales to a market that previously bought four-fifths of its annual output. Still, the government is warning against reigniting dependence on Russia and producers aren’t in a hurry to resume shipments, having diversified their export markets to countries as far afield as China.

Technology and the Internet have not yet infiltrated the dining room or the wine cellar the way they have the living room. But Gary Vaynerchuk, the online wine reviewer, recommends a few online gifts for wine lovers this season. “A gadget that’s Internet-connected in the wine industry doesn’t really exist at this point,” Mr. Vaynerchuk said. “Any gadget that makes wine more complicated than it already is scares people.” But there are a few apps and online publications that he recommends.

The strong Australian dollar has sent sales of French champagne soaring up to 25 percent in Australia in the past year. And for the first time, many Australian ‘methode champenoise’ sparkling wines are now more expensive than the prized French fizz. Imported Moet, which makes up more than 40% of Australian champagne sales, is now selling in liquor barns around the nation for $49 a bottle. As the sound of popping corks explodes across the nation in the lead-up to Christmas and New Year, Australians have developed a love of champagne, said Elizabeth Drysdale, from the Champagne Bureau of Australia.

The producers behind the top three 2011 Verdelhos identified in a recent tasting by the Wine & Viticulture Journal have banded together to help create an upsurge of interest for the variety.