Benefiting from robust premiumisation trends, the U.S. market’s leading wine brands priced at $10-and-above are posting solid growth and outperforming the overall category. The total domestic and imported premium-plus wine segments each rose roughly 4% in 2014, and the top 15 domestic players were up 5.7%, to around 27 million nine-litre cases, according to Impact Databank. Growth was even more pronounced for the market’s top five premium-plus imports, which collectively rose 11.2% to 4.3 million cases last year.

Derek Way is leaving his dream job as vineyard manager at Sagemoor Farms in Pasco, Washington, to pursue other dreams in China. In September, Way, his wife, Lindsey, and their three young children will pack up and leave their quiet home at the vineyard to go live in an apartment in Nanjing, China, a city of more than 6 million people. Way first visited China six years ago during an international study tour while he was in Class 30 of the Washington Agriculture and Forestry Education Foundation’s leadership program.

Nearly every month, David Gramaje gives a seminar lecture on the same topic. But the plant pathologist at the Research Centre of the Vine and Wine in Rioja never lacks for an audience of worried Spanish winegrowers. They’ve come to hear about combating esca and other vine-trunk diseases, a threat they fear will be the defining vine blight of the 21st century—a scourge on the scale of phylloxera, the pest that nearly destroyed winemaking in 19th-century Europe.

Stoneleigh launched its Wild Valley range at the end of last week, a line-up of wild-fermented New Zealand wines comprising a 2015 Marlborough Sauvignon Blanc and a 2014 Marlborough Pinot Noir. The Stoneleigh Wild Valley wines get their complexity from nature, fermented by indigenous yeasts that are naturally present in the Rapaura, Marlborough vineyards. By allowing nature to take its course, the wines have an added texture to the fruity, citrus flavours that earlier Stoneleigh wines are known for.

Entries are open for the 2015 Air New Zealand Wine Awards, a competition which celebrates excellence in New Zealand winemaking and is widely considered to be the country’s most prestigious wine competition. “This is the 40th year New Zealand Winegrowers have managed the Awards”, said Chris Yorke, New Zealand Winegrowers’ global marketing director.

Wine Business Solutions’ 2015 Direct to Customer benchmarking is now underway. This is your opportunity to add to the pool of knowledge in relation to the most profitable part of your wine business. Just follow this link to take the survey It’s also your chance to get the finished survey for half price or $A200 off. All you will need is your revenue and case sales numbers for the last two years as well as your Direct to Customer sales.

Flying business class with Emirates and want to savour a glass of Savvy? You will be served a glass of Hãhã 2013 Marlborough Sauvignon Blanc. Emirates select world-class wines to complement the flavours of their gourmet meals, and as the only Kiwi wine in business class, and the only Sauvignon Blanc, we reckon Emirates selected a prime example of our flagship wine. With 24,000 bottles for business class travellers to enjoy, it is great exposure for the growing Hãhã brand.

Two years living in Australia was enough to convince new Wine Marlborough communications and marketing co-ordinator Harriet Wadworth it was time to return home. The design and fashion graduate grew up in the region before heading to Sydney to hone her sales and marketing skills with Sydney-based Global Events and Marketing. She spotted the vacancy for the Wine Marlborough position as she was leaving Sydney, she said.

Ray Costanzo remembers fussing around his grandfather Mario’s knees as a toddler while the old man prepared the latest vintage on the family’s Granite Belt farm. More than three decades later the younger Costanzo’s Golden Grove Estate is one of the country’s most awarded winemakers and a flagbearer for the Granite Belt’s growing reputation for quality vintages. Throughout Queensland there are about 1500 hectares of wine vineyards, mostly in the southeast.

Internationally renowned wine judge Sarah Ahmed joined a panel of esteemed wine personalities yesterday as judging kicked off for the 2015 Hunter Valley Wine Show. Also known as the Wine Detective, Ahmed is one of Decanter’s ‘experts par excellence’ and joined the group of judges as they work their way through 730 entries from 69 wine exhibitors from the Hunter Valley region.