Heather Webster from Langhorne Creek has been announced as the new chair of the Wine Grape Council of South Australia (WGCSA). WGCSA is a grower-funded organisation that seeks to represent SA’s over 3,000 independent wine grape growers. Webster has worked across a number of industries and brings extensive executive and director experience from roles within the wine industry as well as transport and science.
One of two competitions showcasing the young talent in Central Otago’s wine industry has been cancelled due to lack of contestants. The 11th Bayer Young Viticulturist of the Year competition will be held on July 22 at the Otago Polytechnic campus in Cromwell. However, the young winegrower competition, which was scheduled for next Friday, will not go ahead.
A leading Marlborough wine company is lending its support to the region’s famous historical airshow. The company agreed to sponsor the airshow, which has been renamed Yealands Classic Fighters, for an undisclosed sum. Yealands Family Wines will hold the naming rights to the Classic Fighters Omaka Airshow until 2020. Airshow chairman Graham Orphan said the centre aimed to offer visitors something unique, and Yealands fitted in well as a sponsor.
FIRST there was crowd-funding. Next came Airbnb, followed closely by Uber. Now it seems the sharing economy has moved to the vineyard. Well at least on Brian Spencer’s 65ha Toolleen property it has, in the form of his Shiraz Republic’s rent-a-vine concept. Just like Airbnb has done with accommodation or Uber has with transport, Brian’s 10ha vineyard is allowing wannabe viticulturists and winemakers to experience a side of agriculture out of reach to the unlanded gentry.
Bibendum is re-launching its educational wine app, Plonk, with the aim of re-creating the success of photo-led social media platforms such as Instagram and Snapchat. Now that the merger with Conviviality is well on its way, the supplier is aiming to create an “engaged community of wine drinkers” via their app, with more capabilities to help consumers remember what they were drinking at parties and other social occasions.
Seifried Estate brought home two best in show awards from the San Francisco International Wine Competition. The winery won Best Sauvignon Blanc and Best Late Harvest White for their Old Coach Road Nelson Sauvignon Blanc 2015 and Seifried Winemakers Collection Sweet Agnes Riesling 2015. The San Francisco awards have been running for 36 years and is touted as being one of the longest running wine competitions in the world.
The South Australian Pruning Championships will return to the Clare Valley on July 29, after a move to the Barossa in 2015. This will be the fifth year the event has run since it was revived by the Clare Region Winegrape Growers Association (CRWGA), following a break of nearly 30 years. This year, the competition will be followed by a viticultural workshop. The keynote speaker is Californian viticulturist Glenn McGourty, who is passionate about organic and biodynamic viticulture as “regenerative agricultural” approaches.
RIVERLAND irrigator ¬Anthony Fulwood will not be pulling up stumps yet. The Waikerie citrus and wine grape grower said although the 36 per cent water allocation announced last week was low, the percentage irrigators received at the end of the year was more important. “It’s going to be business as usual for me and I’ll sit tight and see what happens,” Fulwood said.
The Australian Wine Industry Technical Conference (AWITC) & Trade Exhibition (AWITE), is returning to Adelaide this July, six years since it was last held in the city. Gary Fitz-Roy, Fair Events managing director, said the conference is building an impressive portfolio this year with the industry’s best set to showcase the latest wine technology, equipment and services.
Australian Vintage, maker of wines such as McGuigan, Tempus Two and Nepenthe, is the latest corporate victim of Britain’s decision to exit the European Union, after it issued a profit warning this afternoon blaming ‘Brexit’ for a $1 million foreign exchange loss for the company. Australian Vintage — whose McGuigan Black Label is Australia’s No 1-selling bottled red wine and the fourth-biggest wine brand by volume and value in Britain — said before the Brexit vote took place that the company was on track to record net profit growth of 10 to 15 per cent for fiscal 2016.