New Zealand Winegrowers have apologised for a remark made by chief executive Phillip Gregan at an organic wine conference in Blenheim. New Zealand Winegrowers chairman Steve Green said in a statement that Gregan’s comments made during the conference “were poorly chosen and could have been framed better”. Gregan’s comments were made in a panel discussion following a speech he made to open the conference which was attended by New Zealand and international organic and biodynamic winegrowers.

Celebrating 10 years of success, the International Sweet Wine Challenge (ISWC) is inviting winemakers who want to ‘experience the sweet taste of success’ to enter their sweet and semi- sweet wines before Friday 7th August 2015. One of the only wine shows in the world dedicated to sweet and semi-sweet wines from all over the globe; the ISWC aims to highlight the quality and diversity of the best dessert wines available while promoting a greater understanding and awareness of these wine styles.

When far north Queensland mango farmer Robert de Brueys’ fruit crops began losing money he turned to the bottle, using his love of wine to secure his future. On the outskirts of Mareeba, on the Atherton Tablelands west of Cairns, Robert de Brueys once ran a small but successful mango farm. But when trade agreements between Australia and China chipped away at his profit margin he found a new way to use the iconic fruit; he began to make wine out of it. “I’d had this little thought in the back of my mind for some time,” de Brueys said.

THE Beelgara Estate and the Orange-based Cumulus Wines companies are merging to create a venture marketing more than 400,000 cases of wine a year and with gross revenue of $20million. Beelgara, which trades as Wine Insights, owns the former Rossetto winery in the NSW Riverina and has a portfolio that includes the Beelgara brands and the Margaret River Moss Bros, the Coonawarra Riddoch Run and the multi-regional Beelgara Estate and The Habitat labels.

Agricultural service providers in South Australia’s Riverland are urging farmers to diversify, in a bid to halt economic decline across the region. Survey results released by Bank SA this week show business and consumer confidence levels have dropped in the region since February, and are now the lowest in the state. Member for Chaffey, Tim Whetstone, told ABC News the figures are a worrying reflection of the Riverland’s struggling wine industry.

For more than a year Australian Vintage Limited (AVL), Australia’s fourth largest wine producer, worked with psychologists to create a wine brand that would entice Gen Y, specifically based on their wants and needs. The product of the collaboration? YOU Wines. With 18-34 year olds representing 17 per cent of total wine consumers, an industry that is worth $4.1 billion annually, AVL sought to seize a market that before now has “failed to take advantage of its natural fit with Gen Y consumers,” according to AVL general manager Cameron Ferguson.

CHARLTON — A massive fire consumed a 15-year-old family owned winery here Sunday night, destroying the life’s work of a couple in the process. Sarah Benjamin said she was in the family home located on the grounds Charlton Orchards and Winery when she heard two large bangs around 10:30 Sunday. She went up to her second floor bedroom where the curtains were closed – but the fire was so powerful she could see flames through the fabric.

Wine industry figures expect a new law clarifying a wine’s origin to come into force later this year. The industry has been lobbying government officials to amend legislation in the Geographical Indications (Wine and Spirits) Registration Act to have wine more clearly labelled. New Zealand Wine Growers legal advocacy manager Jeffrey Clarke said the Ministry of Primary Industry had been working on minor changes to the Act since legislation was passed in 2006.

New Zealand fruit trade has become a heavy hitter as an export, helping to at least partly offset weakness in the dairy and forest products sectors. Data out from Statistics NZ showed the value of fruit exports reached an all-time high of $2 billion in the year to June, up almost 20 per cent from a year earlier. Wine was another strong performer, up 7.3 per cent to $1.4 billion in the June year.

People plant vineyards for a whole host of different reasons. Some want to make money (hey, good luck with that); some dream of producing the best wine in the world; some are attracted to the romance of it all — contentedly lazing under the shade of their own vines in summer, etc, etc. For Mark Lewis, planting a vineyard in Australia was a way of connecting with centuries of European heritage and tradition.