Red wine aficionados love flowery descriptions for what swirls in their globed glasses. When sniffing and swishing they may detect “delicate, balanced tannins,” a “hint of leather” or a “bouquet of ripe currants.” Unfortunately, the 2016 vintage from grapes grown in Cachagua Valley high above Carmel Valley may bring less palatable tasting notes such as “smoked meat, “campfire” or “dirty ashtray.” Not good.
The customer list and website of a well-established winemaking and retail business are up for grabs, after two related companies were placed in liquidation earlier this year. The Moondarra winemaking business was established in 1991 with the production of pinot noir in Gippsland in regional Victoria. The business later added a vineyard in the King Valley to the operations, which produced pinot gris and pinot noir wine varieties.
Matt Swinford tried to sleep Saturday night, but he felt nervous as the smell of smoke from a nearby wildfire pierced his nose. Hours later, Swinford and his cat fled the vast Clayton Fire that threatened his cottage on the grounds of Terrill Cellars, a Lake County winery where he pours wine for a living. “I had my fingers crossed,” said Swinford, 35. “We’d gone through this before, like last year, and didn’t get hit. I moved up here last year during the Rocky Fire. I knew what I was getting into when I moved up here. I knew the risk.”
“There’s a quote here which reads: ‘The rich want good wine; the poor a lot of wine.’ Well, that’s bullshit. The rich drink a hell of a lot wine as well.” The speaker was Richard Riddiford. He was reading from my first wine book, which he’d agreed to launch over a decade ago. True to form, he was blunt, compelling and funny. It was a style of delivery that brought him notoriety throughout the wine world. With Riddiford’s death a couple of weeks ago, New Zealand wine lost one of its great contributors and personalities.
Derek and Laura Pearse realised a dream 20 years ago this month when they bought the Swan Valley property that is now Upper Reach to make individual and distinctive wine they could sell directly to those who enjoy handcrafted wine. “We were attracted to the property with its established chardonnay vineyard and also to the rich history of the Swan Valley and the people,” Mrs Pearse said.
Mediterranean-style wine varieties were the star of the fourth annual Saint Martin Heathcote Wine Show. In true Olympic fashion, judges awarded medals to 24 wines in the Mediterranean class, where entries had grown to 36 — doubling the amount of last year’s entrants. The judging panel’s chair Tim Kirk described the class in question in one word. ‘‘Wow,’’ he said. The panel added to what Mr Kirk said.
Chinese regulations that caused upheaval in New Zealand’s infant formula industry two years ago are set to be extended to honey and wine exporters. The Ministry for Primary Industries yesterday confirmed it was aware of the move, saying the Certification and Accreditation Administration of China (CNCA) would require registration of wineries and honey producers next year.
The irrigated inland wine business: financial ruin, organics or nuts? Philip White examines two huge developments in Murray-Darling grapegrowing. Last week, GoFarm Australia, a Melbourne-based investment group, bought the Belvino Investments’ 900ha Del Rios vineyard near Swan Hill for somewhere around $22-$25 million.
The chief executive of Lindt Australia, Steve Loane, has been with the chocolatier 19 years and isn’t planning on going anywhere, but he’s backing a wine start-up based on the joys of escaping corporate restrictions. Loane has put $50,000 to date into Iconic Winemakers, an online marketer focused on selling premium wines for winemakers who have made their name at a big brand, before going out on their own.
The amount of sparkling wine on sale in the UK has risen by 80% in the last five years from 17.6 million gallons in 2011-12 to an estimated 31.6 million gallons in 2015-16, according to accountancy group UHY Hacker Young. It said that the increase in the amount on sale is largely due to an increased consumer demand for products such as prosecco and cava, as well as more local English sparkling wines.