A Far North boutique vineyard is toasting an impressive medal haul at an international wine competition. Okahu Estate was awarded gold and silver medals at the competition in San Francisco – one of the most influential wine competitions in the world. Okahu 2014 estate grown Syrah was awarded a gold medal and Okahu 2014 estate grown Chambourcin was awarded silver. Okahu Estate was established in 1984 on a seven acre block near Kaitaia on the road to Ahipara – 90 Mile Beach.

CHAMP Private Equity’s Accolade Wines has met with potential Asian buyers, as the company progresses plans to test market appetite for the business. Street Talk can reveal Accolade’s management team met with a handful of parties that had previously expressed interest, as part of a trip to Asia for the annual wine industry talkfest VinExpo in late May.

Wine lovers will be paying more for Chablis in the next couple of years, after bad weather has already cut the 2016 harvest by as much as 50%, according to one expert. There will be a major Chablis shortfall following what will be one of the Chardonnay-producing region’s most reduced harvests in living memory, according to Louis Moreau, owner of the highly regarded eponymous domaine and vice president of the Chablis Commission at the Burgundy wine bureau (BIVB).

Treasury Wine Estates has taken another step towards meeting its promise to investors of hitting pre-tax margins in the high teens by 2020, by unshackling itself from more non-core, cheap commercial wine in the US. The world’s largest publicly listed winemaker, which owns brands such as Penfolds, Wolf Blass, Lindemans and Beringer, also moved to calm any shareholder fears its British arm could be disrupted by the vote to leave the European Union, saying it did not expect any material change to its fiscal 2017 forecasts.

Giesen Wines is expanding its head office, with the appointment of new chief financial officer Peter Dobbs. Peter was previously managing director at Optica Lfe Accessories Ltd. He was also a partner in national jewellery retailer Silvermoon from 2010-2014. His earlier roles include finance and property general manager at HW Richardson Group and 10 years as an executive director at Otago Trust Group, owned by the late Howard Paterson.

A new $3 million project to reduce the impact of controlled burns and wildfires near wine regions was announced by Deputy Prime Minister Barnaby Joyce. The three-and-a-half-year project Mitigation of Climate Change Impacts on the National Wine Industry by Reduction in Losses from Controlled Burns and Wildfires and Improvement in Public Land Management is a collaborative project between Wine Australia and the Australian Wine Research Institute, Agriculture Victoria and LaTrobe University.

THE Winemakers’ Federation of Australia says it will be assessing and monitoring how the United Kingdom’s decision to leave the European Union will affect Aust¬ralia’s wine industry. Acting chief executive Tony Battaglene has issued a briefing note to the nation’s wine industry about the impact of Brexit. The UK is Australia’s number one export destination by volume with 247 million litres of wine exported last year.

LANGHORNE Creek winery Rusticana is marrying two of its more unusual produce pursuits to create a unique food offering at its cellar door. The winery is now making jams and sauces infused with its Zinfandel and Durif variety wines to further showcase the label’s rare grape varieties. It’s a typically unpredictable approach from Rusticana owners Brian and Anne Meakins who have 25 acres of lesser known grape variety vines planted on their property.

NEW England wine producers have warned changes to a tax originally designed to better support wine producers in rural and regional Australia could end up pushing many to the financial wall. The fallout for the wine industry is continuing after the 2016/17 federal budget revealed changes to the Wine Equalisation Tax (WET) rebate, which supporters say is long overdue to stop widespread rorting of the rebate, but which critics argue will have the unintended consequence of business closures and job cuts.

Australian wine is in the “healthiest place for years”, but needs to continue to challenge perceptions about its quality through single vineyard and site specific wines, Jacob’s Creek’s new winemaker Ben Bryant has said. Speaking to the drinks business during a recent visit to London, Bryant, who took over from Bernard Hickin when he retired in June, said there was a lot of innovation coming out of Australia, and winemakers were beginning to “turn the dial” in building the perception of Australian wine quality.