Central Otago food and wine is the focus of a new celebration in Wanaka. The Feast Wanaka food and wine pop-up celebration began on Sunday and ends today. Feast Wanaka director Nicola McConnell said while Wanaka was recognised for beautiful scenery, the celebration aimed to showcase the productive farming and horticultural side to the region.
Australians are increasingly turning to sparkling wine, as statistics from Wine Intelligence indicate a spike in popularity for Prosecco throughout the past few years. The percentage of Australians drinking Prosecco has increased from 5 per cent in 2011 to 14 per cent in 2014, and the industry is expecting another rise for 2015. According to Zonin Vice President Francesco Zonin, Prosecco has established its place on bottle shop shelves as an accessible sparkling wine in the Australian drinks market.
Never made wine? No problem. Here’s your chance to become a champion at it. If you’ve ever thought you might have what it takes to make wine – now’s your chance. Returning for its third year, Wine: Baptism of Fire is a winemaking competition for amateurs from MOJO Wine. The only condition of entry is that contestants must never have been professionally employed in winemaking. Those who have worked in wine sales and other areas of wine, or in general hospitality, are still eligible.
A stellar line up of wines from the 2016 Sydney International Wine Competition (SIWC) will be available for two public tastings on Saturday 6 February at the Menzies Hotel Sydney. The public tastings from the 36th Sydney International Wine Competition feature a record diversity of wine regions and wine varieties, with 100 different grape varieties and blends represented in this year’s Competition.
Costa Asset Management (CAM), a privately owned Australian company, has announced its acquisition of Victorian winery Littore Family Wines. Once the transaction is complete the winery will operate as Idyll Wine Co. Pty. Ltd. The business takes its name from the Sefton’s Idyll Vineyard located in the Moorabool Valley near Geelong, which was established in 1966 by Daryl and Nini Sefton and on which the winery is sited.
A number of wine producers in the Geographe Wine region were directly threatened by fire caused when lightning struck Dwellingup to the north east of the region, on Wednesday 6th January. Fire quickly spread due to high winds and high temperatures in a south westerly direction, towards the towns of Waroona, Yarloop, Cookernup and Harvey.
The gloves come off in the battle between pro- and anti-development factions in Napa. Bedeviled by traffic jams and rising housing costs, Napa County lawmakers and activists spent much of 2015 trying to hammer out a plan to limit wine industry growth. In the last week of the year, the county attorney may have casually overturned an agreement that was months in the making.
The French winemaker whose prestigious Romanee-Conti is one of the world’s most expensive wines has helped put the vineyards of his beloved Burgundy on the global map of cultural landmarks. Aubert de Villaine, a reserved 76-year-old, took up the mantle to get the Burgundy region’s unique wine-growing tradition onto the Unesco World Heritage list. That effort succeeded in July and led to his being named a 2016 “man of the year” by the monthly French Wine Review.
As more and more top-selling wine brands in the UK move their bottling over here, Angela Mount looks at the benefits: does it make more sense to ship in bulk? Whether to bottle in the UK or at source is a long-standing debate that continues to divide the wine industry. Advocates reel off benefits such as cost savings and increased sustainability, in addition to safer quality control and speed of response to forecast fluctuations.
Sileni Estates has launched nationwide distribution of its wines into China via a new relationship with China Resource Vanguard Co. Ltd (CRC). Sileni wines will be distributed via high-end supermarket chains, Ole’ and blt, the flagship retail offering from CRC, one of the largest retail chain enterprises in China. The new business relationship is the culmination of four years of negotiations with CRC by Sileni Estates CEO and President, Sir Graeme Avery.