Victorian irrigators are banking on at least two more years of full water allocations. The rapidly filling Murray-Darling storages have coincided with optimistic forecasts for many horticulture prices which have growers talking positively with financiers for the first time in years. Irrigator leaders said confidence had returned to many industries after the sodden end to the drought, reports Weekly Times Now. “The storages are pretty close to chock-a-block, there is a light at the end of the tunnel for a lot of people,” Murray Valley Winegrowers chairman Dennis Mills said.

It is a later start to the grapes harvest in Gisborne but birds are attacking the grapes earlier and in increasing numbers, reports The Gisborne Herald. The grape season is running about seven to 10 days later than normal due to a typical cloudy and wet La Nina season with less sunshine hours and heat, says GroCo general manager and viticulturist Warwick Bruce. The perennial problem of birds has seen vineyards transformed into a sea of netting as growers do their best to protect their grape crops.

Brand manager for Moët Hennessy, Romain Brunot, has been jailed and fined for stealing £75,000 of Champagne and spirits. Over a four year period he appropriated 400 bottles of Krug and 400 bottles of Belvedere vodka that had been left over from events, including those held at the Dorchester Hotel and Heston Blumenthal’s restaurants. Brunot then transferred the bottles to a cellar in the east end of London and then to a storage unit registered in a friend’s name, reports The Drinks Business.

Grape pickers have been getting up before dawn at Coolangatta Estate this week to ensure the Shoalhaven Coast wine region’s most famous wine is not affected by heavy rain. Some NSW vineyards have lost more than 90 per cent of their crop this season so everyone was smiling with relief when the white wine harvest was completed at Shoalhaven Heads on Monday and the first of the reds were picked yesterday, reports the Illawarra Mercury.

Winemakers in Margaret River say a hotter than average summer has provided near perfect growing conditions for winegrapes this year. Vintage for white grapes in the region is expected to wrap up this week, about a fortnight earlier than usual. The Wine Industry Association’s Aymee Mastaglia says the higher temperatures have not only prevented disease, but also improved fruit quality, reports ABC News.

Rhone Valley winemaker Alain Graillot is big in Crozes-Hermitage. He was once described as its ”brightest new star”. However, in person he is quiet, at times barely audible. And what does the gentleman with the twinkly eyes, ready smile and wild white spectacles have to say? Well, to his Australian business partner, Rob Walters, the man is a constant source of wine knowledge and experience. To Australian Shiraz drinkers, Graillot wants to start a discussion on style, specifically about the way we view our national red, writes Jeni Port in The Age.

A campaign urging NSW consumers to demand local wines should be welcome news for the state’s winemakers, who feel the industry could be doing more to push their wares. Launched at the weekend’s Sydney Cellar Door event, the ‘Ask For It’ campaign aims to encourage NSW residents to become as fiercely parochial about their state’s wine as the other wine-producing states, reports The Shout. “If they can’t see a NSW wine on a bottle shop shelf or on a wine list then they should ask for it,” NSW Wine said.

Fears that smoke from bushfires would smite Tasmania’s bumper winegrape harvest have eased. While Meadowbank Vineyard was ruined as a blaze whipped through the Upper Derwent Valley on Sunday, the winds which fuelled the blaze also carried most of the smoke away and prevented it lingering to cause widespread damage. It is understood the state’s wine industry is now rallying to help Meadowbank bounce back from disaster, reports The Mercury.

New Zealand expects a small 2012 vintage, which is likely to put the brakes on its decade-long growth spurt. The industry is predicting crops could be as much as 30% lower compared to 2011’s 328,000 tonne harvest. A lighter crop could lead to a grape shortage, which marks a massive turnaround for an industry that has been burdened by oversupply since 2008, reports Decanter.

Bad weather has forced the cancellation of the Waipara Valley Wine and Food Festival. A notice on the festival’s website says “a significantly bad forecast” for the next six days has forced the cancellation of the outdoor event. The advisory says the “comfort and practicality” of those attending and the stallholders had been taken into account when the decision was made, reports The Press.