Six months ago Treasury Wine Estates had barely made a sale into Chinese supermarket chain, Yonghui. Now the maker of Penfold’s, Wolf Blass and Wynns counts the Fuzhou-based retailer as its largest single customer on the mainland.
Such examples made China the stand-out performer in TWE’s full year results on Wednesday, as volumes in Greater China rose 36 per cent and profits across the region were up 52 per cent.
The judges of the CCL Label Clear Image Hunter Valley Wine Show have agreed that the 2014 Hunter Shiraz vintage is one of the region’s best.
“The Shriaz classes of entry were tremendous and have set new levels of benchmark for the Hunter,” said PJ Charteris, the chairman of judges.
More than 50% of the 2014 Hunter Shiraz wines entered into the 2015 show were awarded medals.
The Italian sparkling wine prosecco has overtaken champagne for the first time in Britain, with sales far outstripping its French rival, according to research. Sales of prosecco jumped 72 per cent in value in the year to mid-July, reaching £339m (A$725m), the research company IRI found. “Prosecco is a fashionable drink that provides a cheaper and excellent quality alternative to champagne,” said IRI alcoholic drinks analyst Toby Magill.
A 12 strong judging team, including international judge Dan Sims, is gearing up to judge almost 600 entries for this year’s Bragato Wine Awards in Hawke’s Bay. Sims started out in the Australian wine industry as a sommelier and is a well-respected wine commentator, educator, and promoter based in Melbourne. Known for being outspoken on the subject of making the world of wine accessible, Sims is currently focused on producing large scale events for wine drinkers that are informative and interactive.
Massey University’s beef research team put GPS collars on 30 cows within three herds of 20-30 cows and monitored their movements over two winters, as part of a project looking at pugging and cows’ environmental impactFOUR of the grapegrowing industry’s finest prospects will be lining up in Hawke’s Bay next week battling for the title of national Young Viticulturist of the Year.
The University of Adelaide released findings yesterday that indicate the solid waste left over from winemaking could make a competitive biofuel. Published in the journal Bioresource Technology, the researchers showed that up to 400 litres of bioethanol could be produced by fermentation of a tonne of grape marc. Global wine production leaves an estimated 13 million tonnes of grape marc waste each year. Nationally it is estimated that several hundred thousand tonnes are generated annually and it is generally disposed of at a cost to the winery.
It was one of those moments where even though moving to the other side of the country sounded crazy, for Josh Phillips and Zoe Young it was about diving in the deep end and taking on the challenge of running a winery in Queensland. For some people the idea of a desk job doesn’t quite cut it. They need to feel the soil between their toes and the brush of the breeze on their face.
It could not have been a better start to the season for wine producers in the central west of New South Wales. There have been decent snowfalls to set fruit, dams are full of water for irrigation and the soil moisture profile is full. But this could all come undone very quickly if the threat of El Nino eventuates late this year. Local producers have grown increasingly nervous about the severe frosts predicted by the weather bureau and are already starting to prepare.
TWO wineries from Victoria’s Pyrenees will represent Australia at the world’s most prestigious sparkling wine conference in France later this year. Blue Pyrenees and Taltarni are two of just seven Australian wineries chosen to attend the VITeff exhibition in Champagne — the birthplace of sparkling wine. Both wineries were established by French winemakers in the 1960s and specialise in making traditional sparkling wine, which they submitted to VITeff hoping for a chance to show off their efforts on the world stage in October.
A wine tax rebate costing more than $300 million a year is distorting the industry and being widely exploited by wholesalers, distributors and “virtual winemakers”, a government discussion paper has found. A review into the wine equalisation tax (WET) to be released by Assistant Treasurer Josh Frydenberg today, has revealed widespread rorting of the subsidy scheme, which allows winemakers — including New Zealand producers — to access a tax rebate of up to $500,000.