Chief Winemaker Nikolai St George added some impressive bling to the Matua awards cabinet on Saturday night at the 2015 New Zealand Royal Easter Show Wine Awards, triumphing over all to take home the Royal Easter Show Trophy for Champion Wine of the Show in addition to the Pullman Hotels Trophy for Champion Syrah for the 2013 Matua Single Vineyard Matheson Syrah. With an additional two gold medals, 10 silver and two bronze, St George then took to the stage again to claim the Royal Agricultural Society Gold Medal for Wine Maker of the Year.

The trend of more and more New Zealanders drinking quality over quantity has seen drinks giant Lion’s profits drop more than 20 per cent. Drinks giant Lion, which has 46 per cent of the New Zealand market, is making less money in the domestic market as alcohol drinkers opt for quality over quantity. Accounts for Lion filed to the Companies Office add to the picture of a declining booze industry, partly offset by a move to “premiumisation” and a push into new, healthy non-alcoholic drinks that was highlighted when its Japanese owner Kirin reported annual results last month.

Winemaking goes back hundreds of years. However in Australia its success has at times been attributed to a willingness to embrace new ideas, as opposed to Europe where some methods have changed little over the centuries. For one vigneron near Murrumbateman, NSW, who has tasted success both in sales and in awards, he is using a method for this year’s vintage that many would think is no longer in vogue. Alex McKay from Collector Wines has a winery between Hall and Murrumbateman, 40 kilometres north of Canberra.

Australia’s most influential wine traders have been invited to head to Tasmania for a two day wine-focused visit in June. Selected trade representatives will taste their way around the Apple Isle, induling in the regions finest wine, cider, whisky and food. Sheralee Davies, Wine Tasmania chief executive officer, said visiting Tasmania was the best way to experience the island’s diverse wine. “We’ll be showing (and tasting) as much of Tasmania as we can squeeze into two days,” Davies said.

In February, Australian wine company Jacob’s Creek announced that it had joined hands with a California winemaker to produce a new lineup of wines, branded “Two Lands,” to be sold exclusively in the US. The collaborative project saw Jacob’s Creek’s head winemaker, Bernard Hickin, pair with Ehren Jordan, a renowned winemaker from the Napa Valley. The joint project comes mainly as an Australian effort to boost wine sales in the US. A once-booming industry, Australian wine sales in the US saw a decline of over 20% from 2008 to 2013.

A global survey into wine retailing trends has identified three key challenges – the rise of convenience purchasing, online sales and store consolidation. The survey, undertaken by Wine Intelligence, was commissioned by the organisers of the world’s largest wine and spirits trade fair – ProWein – which is taking place in Düsseldorf this week. The survey represents data from eight separate markets accounting for half of the wine consumed globally.

Critics of Australian wine need to “stand back” and prepare themselves for what Neil McGuigan of Australian Vintage believes could be the most “exciting period” in the country’s history driven by the best quality wines it has ever produced. The outspoken chief executive of Australian Vintage told Harpers.co.uk at ProWein this weekend that all the talk in the trade of the problems facing the Australian wine industry are so wide off the mark.

Coming soon to a supermarket near you: Beer and wine. Three decades after politicians first promised beer and wine in corner stores, the Liberal government now plans to go further — by liberalizing sales in hundreds of large supermarkets across the province. The government wants to significantly loosen the quasi-monopoly held by the foreign-owned chain ever since prohibition ended nine decades ago. Potentially hundreds of Ontario’s larger supermarkets — from among the roughly 1,500 located across the province — would initially be permitted to sell beer and wine.

New Zealand’s Yealands Family Wines has secured a new distribution agreement for its portfolio in the Northern Territory. NT Agencies has signed on as the distributor of Yealands in the top end, effective this week. Yealands Wine Group national sales manager in Australia, Andrew Thiele said the new agreement was another step in the right direction for the brand, which experienced significant growth in global markets during 2014.

Since the early 2000s, the amount of land planted in wine grapes throughout New Zealand has increased by a whopping 100 per cent. In the last 12 years, according to Statistics New Zealand, between the years 2002 and 2014, the area of land planted in grapes has leapt from 17,300 hectares to 34,130 hectares. Statistics have also been released for areas planted in apples, cherries, blackcurrants, avocados and kiwifruit over the same period.