Claiming back the wine roots of Australia, the NSW Wine Industry Association and Langton’s have joined forces to hold the inaugural First Planted Auction at the Sydney Cricket Ground 02 September 2016, showcasing the oldest and most diverse wine producing state in the country. “Winemakers from across NSW have been winning awards and producing outstanding vintages for decades.
Drink wine and do good. In partnership with Social Traders and Australia Post, we talk to one of the social enterprises on their Good Spender website: Goodwill Wine. David Laity was one of the thousands of people displaced by the 2009 Black Saturday Bushfires in Victoria. At the time of the blaze, Laity was living in Chum Creek and working at a nursery in the Yarra Valley.
Angove Family Winemakers is zeroing in on going completely organic as the movement gains ever greater ground in Australia. Speaking to the drinks business, John Angove, explained that with 270 acres already certified organic and another 19-20 acres set to follow next year, “ultimately we’re looking at the option of the entire 400 acre vineyard being organic. We need to see what the demand will be but we’re seeing a lot of interest and other big companies doing likewise.”
As demand for New Zealand wine continues to grow in the key markets of the USA, the United Kingdom and Australia, the industry is rising to the challenge. That’s according to Alistair King, Crowe Horwath’s viticulture specialist, who says the outlook is positive, particularly with a plentiful grape harvest for the 2016 vintage.
FIRST Karl Roberts noticed early season stress on leaves in a block of pinot noir vines at Capella Vineyard, on the Mornington Peninsula. “We had a few days of excessive heat in the December of 2014 and the leaves were colouring and falling off in one block of pinot,” he said. Next, Karl — the vineyard manager for Capella Vineyard, owned by Handpicked Wines — attended a seminar run by Landcare about regional trials of compost under vines.
New Zealand entrepreneurs Roy Zane and Steven Male are launching a world first: a calculator which helps users work out how much wine to buy for their wedding or upcoming event. The free Wedding Wines calculator works on a simple four step process in which users are asked a few details about their event including the main type of food being served and the drinking habits (from tea-totaller to heavy) of the average attendee.
From a quiet region of Bordeaux where the high side of wine costs a few dozen dollars per bottle—one winemaker who shucked tradition now sells a portion of his precious liquid for close to two thousand dollars per bottle. To learn more I visited the eight-acre château (and home) of Dominique Léandre-Chevalier in the tiny village of Anglade, an hour northeast of Bordeaux city.
At the behest of the local wine industry, a new proposal would toughen federal labelling standards on a bottle of wine, controlling more tightly wineries’ claims of vintage dates, varietals and geographic region where the grapes are grown. Local vintners have complained that exemptions currently allowed by the federal Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau are misleading consumers and hurting the reputation of their local wine regions.
Australia’s largest wine company, Treasury Wine Estates, recently announced an initiative to put a spotlight on the regionality of their wines. The message was clear. Australia’s biggest wine company was moving away from ‘brand Australia’. Should other wine brands follow? Emilie Reynolds reports.
The prices of most winegrape varieties in the Murray-Darling and Swan Hill wine regions increased this year while production dropped marginally. Data provided by wineries to Wine Australia for the 2016 Murray-Darling / Swan Hill Wine Grape Crush Report revealed a 27% increase in the average price of Chardonnay, up from $223/tonne to $283/tonne.