After being lauded as the world’s rock star economy, is New Zealand’s bubble about to burst? Three surveys of confidence in recent days show the mood is turning gloomy, sparking warnings about talking the economy into a recession. There are good reasons for jitters, including sinking commodity prices, the Greek debt crisis and panicked share trading in one of our largest trading partners, China. But a quick survey of some leading economic observers suggests the optimists still outweigh the pessimists about the outlook for New Zealand in the next two years.

When you think of wine, France, Italy and California likely come to mind, but in China, the world’s fifth-largest consumer and producer, winemakers are determined to add that country to the list, CBS News’ Seth Doane reports. The desert in Ningxia is being transformed. It’s taking billions of gallons of water to irrigate fields there each year and hundreds of millions of dollars of investment to make it China’s wine country.

The discovery of black widow spiders in imported grapes highlights once again the Government’s lax attitude to biosecurity risks, Labour’s Primary Industries and Biosecurity spokesperson Damien O’Connor says. “MPI officials are trying to talk down the find, saying the spiders don’t pose a danger to the horticultural industry. “I’m assuming they are taking the proverbial. Certainly there might be more sniffer dogs at airports to check baggage, but there’s clearly insufficient scrutiny of commercial and container imports.

NEW research has shown that a visit to a winery’s cellar door has a lasting effect on consumer behaviour, influencing their buying habits for months afterwards. The Ehrenberg-Bass Institute tracked behaviour of more than 3,300 visitors to 79 cellar doors across Australia over a six-month period. The results reveal the power of the cellar door in promoting a winery or region’s brand.
During the six-month period after a cellar door visit, the buyer group (54% of visitors) bought an average of 9.1 bottles of the winery’s wine, and the likelihood of making future purchase is 47% on average.

Australians are paying more in income tax than goon companies. That’s according to an independent think tank, which wants cheap wine to be taxed the same way as beer. At the moment, cheap wine attracts only $3 in tax per litre of alcohol while bottled beer reaps ten times that at $35, and premium wine at $55. The Australia Institute believes the unfair tax treatment is corporate welfare at its worst, with a majority of wine producers paying almost nothing, reports SBS.

One of South Australia’s most exclusive clubs is about to get a bit larger. A second set of businesses will shortly be awarded the Barossa Trust Mark, an initiative designed to highlight the area’s most respected producers and operators. Twenty-five local businesses made last year’s inaugural list, including a bakery that uses both an oven and recipes dating back to 1924, a bed and breakfast where you can wander into the cellar to choose a bottle of wine for dinner, and a winery tour that lets visitors taste a 100-year-old port.

Qantas will focus on matching its lounge and premium cabin food offerings with the right cocktail, spirit or champagne as well as wine now that a new team of beverage experts from Neil Perry’s Rockpool Restaurant Group is taking charge of the selection process. The airline last month disbanded the Qantas Wine Panel, comprised of three Australian winemakers, which had been in charge of beverage selection for a decade. In its place, a new team called The Qantas Rockpool Sommeliers will take over the task of tasting 1200 Australian wines and French champagnes.

Wine Grape Growers Australia (WGGA) announced Woolworths Liquor Group, ProScare and Grope Hamilton Lawyers as three new sponsors for 2015/16. Assisting WGGA with legal expertise, insights into wine consumption trends and vineyard management solutions, the new sponsors were “all are committed to seeing a better future for Australian grapegrowers”, according to a statement released by WGGA yesterday. Mark Hamilton, Grope Hamilton managing partner, said Grope Hamilton Lawyers was very pleased to sponsor WGGA.

Next time you want to complain about your spatially ¬challenged NYC apartment, just remember the name Matt Baldassano. Because that’s the name of a guy who lives in a 550sqft apartment in the East Village with a dog and, oh right, a fully functioning winery. We’re talking ginormous barrels of fermenting grape juice sitting in what is potentially his dining area for about a year at a time.

A three-year trial has shown it’s reasonably simple to convert to organic wine production in Central Otago, provided there’s the desire to do so and the financial backing, Gibbston Valley Wines (GVW) vineyard manager Grant Rolston says. GVW, with Wither Hills in Marlborough and Mission Estate in Hawkes Bay took part in the national organic grape-growing trial. The results will be presented at New Zealand’s first national Organic and Biodynamic Winegrowing Conference, in Blenheim next week.