At a fine dining restaurant in the heart of New Zealand’s wine country, our host is cracking open beers with the handle of a teaspoon. Josh Scott, founder of Moa Brewery in Blenheim, wants us to try every beer he has ever brewed. He has hauled a cardboard box of bottles from his small brewery to his father’s restaurant over the road and plonked it in the middle of a dining table, to quizzical looks from neighbouring diners.
New Zealand’s most famous Sauvignon Blanc producer, Cloudy Bay, is celebrating its 30th anniversary, and its estate director Ian Morden is convinced that the Marlborough wine region has “great potential” for sparkling wine. Owned by LVMH, the firm behind Champagne houses Moët & Chandon and Veuve Clicquot, Cloudy Bay’s sparkling wine Pelorus is one of the country’s leading examples.
The men behind British talk show host Graham Norton’s signature wine have set up shop across the ditch. Tim Lightbourne and Rob Cameron, founders of Auckland-based Invivo Wines, have opened an international office in Adelaide, Australia and have appointed Mark Boardman as international sales manager. Lightbourne said it was an exciting step for the company as they continued to grow their business around the world.
The Ovid winery’s 2014 Wild Ferment Finger Lakes Riesling Ice Wine took first prize at the Canberra International Riesling Challenge in Australia last week. The local vintage bested nearly 500 wines from seven countries and also took the Best American Riesling and Best Sweet Riesling awards. “The Canberra International Riesling Challenge is the world’s only international Riesling judging, considered the ‘Cannes’ of Riesling, comparable to the famous film festival in southern France in terms of prestige.”
Treasury Wine Estates has raised $368 million through a share issue to help fund its purchase of Diageo’s US and UK wine operations. Shares in TWE, which is buying most of the drinks giant’s US and UK-based wine operations for $US552 million ($A761 million) and taking on another $US48 million of leases, will resume trading on Monday after being placed in a halt last Wednesday. Approximately 89 per cent of entitlements available to institutional investors were taken up, with a retail component to open on October 26.
Tasmanian winery Home Hill Wines, located in the Huon Valley, has taken home two major trophies at the 2015 Royal Melbourne Wine Awards (RMWA), including the Jimmy Watson Memorial Trophy for Best Young Red, with their 2014 Kelly’s Reserve Pinot Noir. Also awarded the James Halliday Trophy for Best Pinot Noir, Home Hill Wines’ owners Rosemary and Terry Bennett, who run Home Hill Wines at Ranelagh – with eldest son Sean managing the 6ha vineyard and daughter Kelly Kumar in front office and marketing, accepted the accolades at a presentation dinner held last Thursday.
Australia’s vineyards sector lost the equivalent of one-and-a-half Barossa Valleys between the 2012 and 2015 harvests, according to new figures released by the Australian Bureau of Statistics. Lower profitability, due to higher water prices and lower fruit prices, drove down land values in big wine-producing regions like the Riverland and Riverina, forcing landowners to pull out vines and replace them with higher-yielding horticultural crops like almonds and stone fruit – or abandon growing altogether.
Challenges to the wine industry are currently putting wine producers under pressure. On the local front the South African government’s lack of commitment to the industry and political uncertainty plays a role. Internationally, producers have to contend with increased competition, inflation and volatile exchange rates. The relatively small local market, distance from the main markets and the influence of changing weather patterns adds to the risks.
Wine lovers got a chance last night to pre-sample a line-up of 40 mostly unique wine blends that will be up for grabs in a month’s time at the 24th annual Hawke’s Bay Wine Auction. The tasting was held in the Gatsby Room at the Art Deco Masonic Hotel in Naper. This year’s auction will be held at the Hawke’s Bay Opera House Plaza on Saturday, November 14 and proceeds from the auction will go to Cranford Hospice.
IN THE year of the Rugby World Cup the timing of New Zealand’s latest international win over Australia could not be better – and some may see it as a promising omen. At the Six Nations Wine Challenge, which was staged in Sydney last week, New Zealand took out the Wine Nation of Show trophy, with Hawke’s Bay wineries and vineyards among the trophy and gold medal results. Australia was runner-up.