Delegat Group’s New Zealand harvest has fallen by more than a quarter but the wine company is still confident sales will rise this year. Delegat’s said it harvested nearly 27,000 tonnes of grapes for the 2015 season. The New Zealand harvest has accounted for 25,000 tonnes, 26 percent lower than last year. The company said that was partly due to higher than average yields the previous year and lower than average yields this year.
Despite hail storms, an unusually warm spring and low yields, West Australian winemakers say they have finished a successful vintage. Growers in the south of the state say low volumes led to excellent quality in some varieties. Whereas further north, the Swan Valley pick is set to be one of the best vintages on record. For many growers, this year’s harvest was quite a long one. Some of those in the Swan Valley wine region kicked off their pick in December. Yet others were left wrapping up at the end of April.
Australia’s winemakers have given the Government legal advice on how to end what they describe as a “perverse” and “absurd” subsidy for the New Zealand’s industry. The wine equalisation tax (WET) was introduced to make up the difference when the GST replaced higher wholesale sales taxes. In a move initially designed to support smaller winemakers and grape growers, the Government allowed them to claim a rebate of up to $500,000.
The May 2015 issue of the Grapegrower & Winemaker magazine is out now – and is available online for all subscribers. The annual vintage report is featured this month with a wide range of Australian wine regions commenting on their ‘fast and furious’ 2015 harvest season. The May issue also looks at the latest in post-harvest vineyard care, pruning, frost management and oaks. We also feature an in-depth look at boutique wineries, inviting a number of industry leaders to share their opinion on what it takes to be small and successful.
One of Australia’s more esteemed makers of shiraz is locked in an existential struggle with bureaucrats intent on turning his historic winery into a haven for a frog he says hasn’t been seen on the property for 50 years. Pat Carmody, whose Craiglee Vineyard sits on Melbourne’s western outskirts, discovered by chance in 2013 that his property had had a growling grass frog overlay placed on it covering 75 per cent of the property. On a horseshoe bend of Jackson’s Creek at Sunbury, the vineyard produces a few thousands cases a year of some the ¬nation’s finest shiraz, regularly ranking in Halliday’s top 100.
Lion has signed a long-term deal with Jebsen Fine Wines to have its Fine Wine Partners portfolio distributed across China. The deal will see Jebsen distribute Australian and American wine brands across many of China’s provinces. The wine brands soon to reach Chinese adult consumers include St. Hallett, Petaluma, Stonier, Knappstein and Argyle. Bill Webb, managing director of Lion’s Fine Wine Partners, said that China is a key focus for the business’ global strategy.
AN Adelaide entrepreneur has secured a distribution agreement with China’s biggest hypermarket chain, RT-Mart, which is set to deliver more than $500 million in annual sales to Australian food and beverage brands. The deal, to be signed in Shanghai on Thursday, will see the establishment of a designated aisle selling “famous Australian brands” including milk powder, vitamins, wine and biscuits. It was negotiated by Randal Tomich, an Adelaide winemaker who came to China looking to secure a distribution agreement for his family label.
South Africa is one of the biggest wine producers and exporters in the world – but the relative affordability of our offerings means the country does not benefit as much financially as some of its counterparts. This is according the latest data from the International Organisation of Vine and Wine (OIV), detailing reported and estimated data on the global wine industry in 2014. Global wine production, excluding juice and musts, is expected to hit 279 million hectolitres (mhl) in 2014 – a decrease of 4.1 per cent compared with 2013, according to the OIV.
Mouton Rothschild and Lynch-Bages snapped up but Angelus and Palmer failing to attract buyers. Well-priced wines from Bordeaux’s 2014 vintage are making a splash, but merchants are ignoring some big-name wines whose prices are a turn-off for buyers. Heavyweight châteaux Haut-Brion and Cos d’Estournel, as well as the highly respected Tertre Rôteboeuf released their en primeur wines on Tuesday, following last week’s releases of Angelus, Palmer, Lynch-Bages and others.
A growing and more affluent middle class is driving India’s fascination with wine which has been improving in quality and recently has been winning several international awards and recognitions, writes our guest writer Dan Traucki who suggests it would be very interesting to see how some of the Iberian, Greek or southern Italian native varieties would thrive and perform there, especially the whites. India, the second most populous nation on earth consumes a mere 0.012 litres of wine per person – roughly six tablespoons – per annum.