A family owned boutique winery’s 2015 Sauvignon Blanc has been deemed the best white wine buy of the year by renowned wine writer Michael Cooper. The Starborough Family Estate Sauvignon Blanc has been labelled as a “five-star wine at a three star price” in New Zealand Wines 2016: Michael Cooper’s Buyers Guide. Cooper goes on to say; “this is benchmark stuff, hard to resist in its youth…this impressive wine is widely available at $20 and when sold on promotion it’s an absolute steal.”

A new home for Devil’s Corner wine will be officially unveiled on the 16th December 2015 at the Hazards Vineyard in Apslawn, on the east coast of Tasmania. The Devil’s Corner Cellar Door and Lookout, created from dark metal and rough, textured local timber has been designed by Cumulus Studio, the renowned Tasmanian architects behind projects such as Pumphouse Point and The Apple Shed, and built by Launceston builder Anstie Constructions.

Seppeltsfield Wines, FINO restaurant and JamFactory At Seppeltsfield have rallied together to support the South Australian Country Fire Service through a combined donation effort, following the extensive mid-North fires throughout the region last week. The collective businesses have committed to giving all tour takings, gallery donations, a percentage of retail sales and 100% signature dish revenue from this week’s trade.

Delegat Group, New Zealand’s largest listed wine company, forecast record operating profit and case sales for 2016 on growth in the North American market and in the Asia-Pacific region. Operating profit is expected to rise 5 per cent to $36 million in the year ending June 30, 2016, managing director Graeme Lord told shareholders at their annual meeting in Auckland. Sales are forecast to rise 8 per cent to 2.4 million cases, he said.

WHILE their neighbours are pulling out cabernet vines, Glenmaggie winemakers Fleur and Tony Dawkins and planting them. A rapidly heating micro­climate has meant they can ripen cabernet grapes perfectly. “Most of Gippsland has trouble ripening cabernet because it’s too cold, but we don’t. We have a very hot site,” Fleur said. “It’s the same sort of climate they have to produce French Hermitage wine.

Some of the district’s first 2015 Rieslings are already proving to be the best since 1971. Winemakers are hoping their Shiraz, other reds and whites will follow suit. Chris Shanahan reflects on a year which could become the best yet. He also reveals an exciting maverick attitude towards growing new varieties.

Energy and carbon management specialists, Pangolin Associates, celebrate a client’s ‘Australian first’. Ross Hill Wine Group in Orange NSW has just received carbon neutral certification under the National Carbon Offset Standard (NCOS). It is the first Australian winery to achieve the Australian Government-recognised certification. Whilst other schemes exist, they are the tailored creations of a few carbon management companies.

D’ARENBERG Winery has released its first artist’s impressions of its $13 million function centre which resembles a Rubik’s Cube. Work on the building, known as the d’Arenberg Cube, started in spring but artist impressions have remained secret until now. The pictures show the five-storey building set among the McLaren Vale winery’s Mourvedre vines, with the top two storeys turned askew from the rest.

Seppeltsfield Wines, FINO restaurant and JamFactory At Seppeltsfield have rallied together to support the South Australian Country Fire Service through a combined donation effort, following the extensive mid-North fires throughout the region last week. The collective businesses have committed to giving all tour takings, gallery donations, a percentage of retail sales and 100% signature dish revenue from this week’s trade.

It’s a contemporary wine paradox: The more wines we have to choose from, the less emotionally committed we become. This is unique to our time. Indeed, you could go so far as to say that it’s a 21st-century phenomenon, so recent is it. On the surface, the problem—if that’s the word—is sheer abundance. Anyone who follows wine in the United States knows that we’re seeing today a diversity and abundance of wines never previously witnessed.