Small and medium-sized wine grape growers face the prospect of another bleak post-harvest selling season with vineyard values still in the doldrums. Between the end of the harvest and the pruning of the vines is when many growers weigh up whether to go round another year or sell out. While the lower dollar has helped big wine companies like Treasury Wine Estates report bumper profits, the price of wine grapes has remained flat, putting a damper on vineyard values.

ONE of the county’s top wine merchants has said British drinkers have to be more patriotic if our industry is to grow. Colin Munday, owner of the English Wine Centre in Alfriston, called on this country’s wine lovers to be more like the Germans and French in favouring their own products. His comments come after Prime Minister David Cameron praised Sussex winemaking in an exclusive piece for The Argus on Saturday.

A central Otago vineyard is embracing worms as the secret to turning wine by-product into fertilising “black gold”. Mt Difficulty in Bannockburn this year bought 60kg of tiger worms to convert composted grape marc, made from grape seeds, skins and stalks, into vermicast, or worm poo. Mt Difficulty viticulturist James Dicey said vermicast was filled with nutrients and known as “black gold”.

Like a fine vintage, a friendship between two stalwarts in the wine industry has stood the test of time with more than two decades between get-togethers. Terry Dunleavy MBE and Tony Laithwaite are known for doing great things. Dunleavy, the inaugural CEO of the New Zealand Wine Institute and patriarch of Waiheke Island’s Te Motu Vineyard Dunleavy family, was instrumental in taking the New Zealand wine industry to the overseas market.

Would you believe that two years have passed since Treasury Wine Estate boss, Michael Clarke, kicked in the front door of our favourite wine shop. The sound of chainsaws has subsided at HQ, the barbarians from KKR and TPG are no longer at the cellar door. And the share price has soared from $3.50 to $9.50 during Clarke’s tenure which means his stash of multimillion dollar stock options are maturing nicely in the cellar alongside the Grange.

Australian Vintage Limited (or AVL as it is sometimes known) is one of Australia’s largest wine producers and the architect of some of the country’s most recognisable brands, including McGuigan, Tempus Two and Nepenthe. But despite brand notoriety and years of award-winning winemaking under the belt, some confusion remains around just who Australian Vintage Ltd is. So drinks sat down with General Manager for Australasia and North America, Cameron Ferguson, to set the record straight.

CLARK Island will be transformed into a wine and food-lovers paradise again this November with the return of Wine Island. Held over four days from Thursday 10 November to Sunday 13 November 2016, the event has been hailed of one of Sydney’s most unique wine festivals and sold out almost immediately last year.

Winemakers’ Federation of Australia (WFA) announced Tony Battaglene as interim chief executive officer (CEO) after the resignation of current CEO Paul Evans. Tony D’Aloisio, WFA president, said the board met in Adelaide last week to discuss the arrangements and begin the process of appointing a permanent CEO.

Scientists at the Royal Botanic Gardens will today announce that they have mixed the DNA from a coffee plant with that of a Shiraz grape vine to produce a hybrid that could in the future see viniculture in the Hunter Valley replaced by coffee production due to the impact of climate change. The coffee beans will grow on vine-sized bushes which will mean that the crop can be gathered without the need to replace costly machinery already in place for mechanised harvesting of grapes.

The vineyard terrain of California’s Central Coast is so expansive that a single story couldn’t contain it. Today’s update completes yesterday’s “Central Coast Vineyards Report on 2016,” which included reports from associations, growers and wineries in Santa Barbara, San Luis Obispo and Monterey counties. Not surprisingly, the Santa Cruz Mountains and Livermore Valley differ in vineyard growth and weather conditions from their southern counterparts.