Struggling Riverland irrigators hit by the high Australian dollar on their exports and the grape glut are now also facing higher water costs. The carbon tax from July will add an extra $282 to an average annual bill for water for irrigators. That is on top of a jump in the cost of power to pump the water to their properties in the past four years. The Riverland’s biggest irrigation water supplier, the Central Irrigation Trust, said its water supply bills would have to go up because of the carbon tax and the rising cost of electricity. Up to 1600 irrigators will be affected by the price rise, reports AdelaideNow.

Wine grapegrowers just south of Adelaide are keen to brand an entire region as environmentally sustainable and socially responsible. Growers can sign up to a self-funded program and be monitored on a range of factors, including water and fertiliser use and soil quality. Those behind the initiative say it is a response to growing demand from wine drinkers and it could be the answer to a grape oversupply that is causing tight profit margins, reports ABC News.

The Hunter Valley Protection Alliance says coal seam gas will be the death of the famous NSW wine region. The group unveiled two ads today in response to the Australian Petroleum Production and Exploration Association’s “We want coal seam gas” campaign. HVPA chairman Stewart Ewen said CGS mining could cause damage to underground water aquifers, generate saline mining waste, destroy natural landscapes and kill off the Hunter Valley’s wine and tourism industry, reports Weekly Times Now.

The Wine Advocate’s arrangements in Spain last year created ‘inappropriate ambiguity’ and fell short of the high standards the organisation sets itself, an investigation has found, reports Decanter. Philadelphia legal firm Cozen O’Connor was appointed by Robert Parker in December to investigate allegations that Wine Advocate representative Pancho Campo MW through his organisation The Wine Academy of Spain was effectively charging bodegas, via their consejos reguladores, for access to Wine Advocate correspondent Jay Miller. The investigation did not reveal any evidence that Miller received anything of value to visit wineries or taste wines on behalf of The Wine Advocate.

Other “hot” wines from the Bordeaux 2011 vintage are being sought out as buyers await First Growth pricing, according to wine retailer Slurp. The online merchant said it has already seen a demand for Pontet Canet, Montrose and Lynch Bages from its Bordeaux 2011 site that hosts new electronic ‘wish list’ technology, which it claims is more advanced than other merchant’s current systems, reports Harpers Wine and Spirit. With rumours circulating of early release dates, Howard said it definitely seemed like people had been reading about possible price reductions and it saw a good amount of demand on the first day.

The traditional distinction between a US and European palate is becoming less accurate, according to Louis-Fabrice Latour, head of Burgundy negociant and grower Maison Louis Latour. “The trade in the US has become much more English-oriented,” remarked Louis-Fabrice in an interview with The Drinks Business. “They love the 2010 vintage when a few years ago they would have preferred the ’09.” However, he clarified this perceived shift in the US palate by adding: “It’s the trade I’m talking about, not the final consumers.”

The reputation of any wine or winery cannot and should not be based on just a couple of outstanding wines. Which is the danger in this age of fads and fancies and something called social networking which can turn wines and the people who make them into celebrities of a sort, maybe not quite overnight, but certainly before the reputation of either have really been put to the test. Hence the decision taken by Matthew Jukes and Tyson Stelzer when they were devising the Great New Zealand Pinot Noir Classification to base it on an average assessment of the five most recent vintages, writes Warren Barton in The Southland Times.

Coal River Valley producer Pooley Wines has been voted Tassie’s top vineyard. The winery has won the 2012 Tasmanian Vineyard of the Year Award, adding to a host of honours its wines have won. Pooley Wines has two vineyards Cooinda Vale Estate at Campania, and Belmont Vineyard at Richmond, growing a total of 12ha of vines. It won the award given annually by the Royal Agricultural Society of Tasmania in association with Wine Tasmania and the Tasmanian Institute of Agriculture, reports The Mercury.

Hopes for the 2012 wine vintage were pretty grim in the Ferguson Valley after a horrific hail storm hit vines last spring. But Mother Nature was kind for the rest of the growing season and although volumes are slightly down, it has been a great year. The chief wine maker at Willow Bridge winery, Simon Burnell, is onto his last block of reds and he’s feeling quietly optimistic, reports ABC Rural.

Ballarat is set to enjoy a “showcase of regional wine and produce” after councillors last night approved two upmarket redevelopments in the city’s CBD. A new wine bar will replace the former Max Roberts Electrical store on Doveton Street North and a three-storey structure will be added to the George Hotel, opening a cosmopolitan Melbourne-style public laneway. Councillors praised the application from Mitchell Harris Wines, saying the styled wine bar and cellar door was in keeping with the CBD and heritage strategies, reports The Ballarat Courier.