This week’s column is being filed from South Australia. I’ve been on the other side of the world for a few days now to taste through an array of Hunter Valley Sémillons and Canberra Rieslings. The trip with Wine Australia began in sunny Sydney on the east coast. Hopping on a plane the next morning, our small crew arrived in Adelaide, zipping off to spend a couple of days in the Barossa Valley, Adelaide Hills, and, today, McLaren Vale. Over the next few weeks, we’ll cover many aspects of the Australian wine industry, but for now let’s start with something refreshing and bright.

Whip-cracking acidity, tongue-tingling, citrusy-herby flavours, and pungent aromas give New Zealand sauvignon blancs a punchy, kick-boxing appeal. Immediately recognizable, reliable, predictable, and cheap, they’re tartly crisp wines you either love or hate, with grassy aromas some have likened to cat pee—not, I admit, the most appealing description. One critic suggested that if you dislike New Zealand sauvignon blanc, it might be because you had to mow the lawn when you were a kid.

The 23rd Annual Unified Wine & Grape Symposium (AUWGS) took place last week. Something in it surely caught my interest. Christian Miller of Full Glass Research (FGR) presented at the conference the results of the latest sustainability research. Miller holds a BA in Economics from Franklin & Marshall College and an MBA from Cornell University. FGR is his baby. He also co-founded and advises Wine Opinions (WO), which bills itself as the qualitative and quantitative research arm of the overall wine industry in America. WO draws from a variety of consumer and trade organizations in its wine market research.

A Goulburn Valley-based wine producer has slammed the decision of President Donald Trump to pull out of the Trans-Pacific Partnership as a step backwards for global trade. Andrew McPherson from Nagambie-based McPherson Wine said the new United States President was talking up ‘‘isolationism and trade barriers’’. President Trump lived up to his campaign promise on his first full day on the job on Monday last week when he signed an executive order to pull the US out of the contentious trade deal. The proposed trade agreement was to include 12 Pacific Rim countries, including Australia, in a mass trading bloc that would have included 40 per cent of global GDP.

The Trump administration’s foreshadowed plans for a new tax on imports would hit a range of Australian companies including those selling wine, medical supplies, software and clothing, according to analysis by Citi. The border tax, said to be 20%, would cause major changes in trade flows across the world, especially for those countries where the US is a key market. However, Australia buys more from the US than it sells back. In 2015, Australia’s exports were $14.2 billion, while imports from the US were $33 billion.

According to analysis at Citi, many of the larger Australian companies which have expanded to the US have significant local production which would cushion them from any new border tax

A GISBORNE winery, and a sheep and beef farm have been named among five finalists for the 2017 East Coast Ballance Farm Environment Awards. The awards will be presented in Gisborne at the Bushmere Arms on March 1, where the regional supreme winner will be announced. Eugene and Pania King from Kiriroa Station at Matawai, a 347ha sheep breeding and beef finishing property have become finalists along with Wrights Vineyard and Winery, operated by Geoff and Nicola Wright.

Ireland is synonymous with Guinness and whiskey, but now Merlot and Cabernet Sauvignon can be added to the list of native drinks. Vineyards are traditionally associated with the south of France or the Napa Valley in California, but a farm in Lusk in North County Dublin has resulted in Ireland being officially classed as a wine-growing nation. This corner of Leinster is a 21st century addition to the world’s vine growers thanks to global warming. RTE’s Eco Eye series is set to shine the spotlight on how the temperature rise across the planet could see Ireland becoming an unlikely wine region, while the potato could fail due to drought.

With Shiraz now the dominant wine for our largest export market, China, the dark-skinned variety was celebrated at recent NSW Department of Primary Industries (DPI) industry events which highlighted the versatility of new Shiraz clones. DPI viticultural development officer, Darren Fahey, said 75 select wine industry members took part in special tasting events in Canberra and the Hunter Valley to explore wine style and the Shiraz clones which are best suited to local wine regions.

A new study has found that Aussie shoppers remain a patriotic bunch with a whopping 89 per cent of respondents agreeing they’d more likely buy an Australian made product. The study by research firm Roy Morgan pitted shoppers views of locally made goods over their cheaper Chinese alternatives. It found 30 per cent of us are likely to buy Chinese made goods based on price, while 48 per cent of respondents were less likely to buy the Chinese variant. Only 3 per cent say they’d be more likely to buy wine if it came from China, while 73 per cent are more likely to buy wine if it’s Australian.

One of the Clare Valley’s premier wine brands, the family–owned Pikes Wines, is about to embark on a project that will turn the base of the 33–year–old wine and beer company into a Mid North destination for food, wine and tourism. Famous for its quality Clare wines and striking fish logo, for more than 30 years Pikes Wines has been one of Clare Valley’s most renowned wineries. Started in 1984 by Andrew Pike and his brother Neil, the winery has evolved over the years to include a range of beers in 1996 (Pikes Beer Company), Pikes & Joyce (for their Adelaide Hills wines), while a brewery for their beer range opened in 2014. The next step: a Pikes visitors’ centre.