Nothing beats a hearty meal after a hard day’s work – especially when washing it down with the fruits of your labour. Sommeliers, hotel owners and wine lovers met Herzog Winery owners Hans and Therese Herzog at 8am on Saturday to experience the work and celebration of harvest. Wrapped up warmly and armed with secateurs, each of the 30 people were paired off to pick Sauvignon Blanc grapes. Mrs Herzog said the Harvest Weekend is about sharing the excitement after a year of hard work in the Jeffries Rd vineyard and winery, reports The Marlborough Express.

Before we get all in a tizz over Central Otago fizz, let’s put the launch of a couple of new bubblies from this part of the world, and the prospect of more, into some sort of perspective. The Deep South is not, as some might suggest, about to turn into a southern branch of Champagne, dare I mention the word for fear of upsetting the Champenoise or breaching laws which restrict its use. But the release of two new bubblies by Akarua, with another to come, is likely to see the production of only the odd new methode traditionelle by southern vineyards, writes Warren Barton in The Southland Times.

A four-week cellar hand course at the Nelson Marlborough Institute of Technology in Blenheim has helped unemployed people get jobs in Marlborough’s wine industry. One year has passed since NMIT introduced the course, in conjunction with the Ministry of Social Development and Work and Income, and in partnership with wine companies Indevin, Constellation and Pernod Ricard. Demi Galle, 21, and Zacharaya Floyd, 22, were two of 10 people from around Marlborough who took the opportunity to turn their life around in last year’s intake. This was their second year of working the 7am-7pm shift at Indevin for vintage, reports The Marlborough Express.

Australia’s fashion industry will toast the country’s top designers with wines from Tempus Two at this year’s Mercedes-Benz Australian Fashion Week. The Hunter Valley-based winery has signed on for the very first time as the official wine partner of Australia’s leading fashion event, taking over from the Rosemount label, which also held naming rights for the event in addition to being the official wine sponsor. Tempus Two’s distributor, Australian Vintage Limited, said there is natural synergy between the Tempus Two label and the Australian fashion industry, reports The Shout.

Mick Morris is a fourth-generation winemaker in north-eastern Victoria’s prominent wine region, Rutherglen. He has grape marc in his blood, and knew the industry inside out when he took over the family business in 1952. Mick was the first in his family to be university educated but started his career from the bottom up. He retired in 1993 at the age of 65, when he handed the reigns over to his eldest son David. Despite retirement, he continues to spend time helping out at the family vineyard, reports ABC Rural.

For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. When Sir Isaac Newton devised his third law, he probably wasn’t thinking of Australian wine but he could have been. After the world’s most enthusiastic wine importers fell rapturously in love with the well-made, user-friendly wines of Australia, those who made them can hardly have foreseen that they would fall just as resoundingly and as rapidly out of love with them. Australian offerings have endured a roller-coaster relationship with overseas drinkers. Now the scent of romance is back in the air, writes London-based Jancis Robinson in The Age.

Argentina’s vineyards somehow flourish, despite their incredibly high altitudes, producing unique wines with intense aromas and fruit, writes John Wilson in The Irish Times. Argentina is the hidden heavyweight of the wine world. Currently ranked the fifth-largest producer, it dwarves its better-known neighbour Chile in terms of volume. You will find it in our wine shops, but it lags far behind Australia and Chile in our affections.

Mike Roberts should be a happy man. His Ridgeview vineyard nestling at the foot of the South Downs is producing award-winning sparkling wines that regularly best the finest champagnes in international competitions, reports The Guardian. Business is booming. A new £330,000 degorging plant – which turns the fermenting grape juice into champagne-style sparkling wine – stands proudly in a cavernous warehouse surrounded by rows of 17-year-old chardonnay vines now coming into bud. And yet.

Liquid lunches are getting a new lease of life, thanks to low-alcohol wines. “There’s a wave of low-alcohol wine coming out of New Zealand. Low-alcohol rieslings are starting to become quite popular,” Listener wine writer Michael Cooper tells the New Zealand Herald.

Marlborough wine company Astrolabe says two salvage divers went to great depths to take two cases of its wine from the shipwrecked Rena. The salvage company Svitzer Salvage called wine logistics company JS Hillebrand New Zealand yesterday to tell them the container broken into was one of three filled with Astrolabe wine, reports Marlborough Express.