Organisers of the Marlborough Wine and Food Festival next month say ticket sales look set to match last year’s event when nearly 8000 people attended. General manager Marcus Pickens expects a surge in sales over the coming weeks ahead of the festival on February 11, reports The Marlborough Express. New attractions, like the Chef’s Table with well-known celebrity chefs, would encourage past punters to revisit the annual showpiece at Brancott Estate Vineyard, he said.

Cooler-climate wines could be the answer to Australia’s problems of shrinking off-trade volumes and under-representation on restaurant lists. The category saw take-home volume sales drop 2.7% in the year to September 2011, while value sales remained static at £1.1 billion, according to a recent Wilson Drinks Report commissioned by Wine Australia. In the on-trade, the country only has a 9% share of red listings and 7% share of white on wine lists. But the future is bright if it gets its cool-climate offering right, reports Harpers Wine & Spirit.

Kiwi winemakers are experimenting with Grüner Veltliner – which they believe could be the next big thing from New Zealand. Nine examples were shown at a masterclass at the New Zealand Wine annual trade tasting, reports Off Licence News. Saint Clair winemaker Matt Thomson, who led the class with Yealands Estate’s Tamra Washington, said: “We find this really exciting. There is no preconception about how it should be made.

Leaders in the food and wine industry have been among those to get the highest honours in South Australia’s north and west region in today’s Australia Day honours list. Barossa Valley food identity Maggie Beer has been appointed a Member in the General Division of the Order of Australia – for services to the tourism and the hospitality industry and the promotion of Australian produce and cuisine. Also being honoured with an AM is John Bastian from the Clare Valley, for community service and service to business, reports ABC West Coast SA.

When Wine Australia invites you to go ”Around Australia in 80 Sips” it is a hard offer to knock back. From the time you have wound your way from Margaret River reds to Yarra Valley whites amid the smell of hot meat pies you can easily forget that you are actually at an events space on New York’s 42nd Street. There is a reason why this event is being held here. Producers are keen to get Americans excited about the regional subtleties of Australian wines, writes Mathew Murphy in the Sydney Morning Herald.

Treasury Wine Estates says no workers were at risk when a door on a wine tank failed at its Karadoc winery near Mildura. About 250,000 litres of wine poured from the bin when the door blew out about 10:30pm (AEDT) on Monday night. The wine was captured in the winery’s on-site effluent system, reports ABC News.

Australia’s biggest wine exporter, Casella Wines, is looking at ways to raise prices across its highly successful Yellow Tail label as the high local dollar eats into its profit in its largest market, the United States. Recent accounts lodged with the Australian Securities and Investments Commission show revenue at Casella, Australia’s largest family-owned winery, fell 13 per cent in the 2011 financial year to $344.1 million as the high dollar hurt margins, The Australian Financial Review reports.

The Coonawarra wine region is set for a good vintage this year thanks to excellent weather conditions for grapegrowing. Coonawarra Grapegrowers Association president Dan Newson said the drier conditions in the region this year had grapegrowers hopeful of a good vintage, reports the Stock Journal.

Dozens of Barossa and Eden Valley wines plus a few Barossa beers will be on show for thousands of visitors to appreciate next month. They feature in the second Cellar Door Wine Festival, which runs from February 24 to 26 at the Adelaide Convention Centre. The festival allows visitors to explore 12 iconic wines regions and enjoy tastings from more than 150 wineries. This year 33 wineries from this region and one Barossa brewing company will be on show, reports the Barossa & Light Herald.

Last week an article appeared in Harpers Wine and Spirits outlining how wines from the Rueda region in Spain were poised to take market share away from New Zealand Sauvignon Blanc in the UK. The original press release was distributed by a UK agent, Clink Wines, who have a number of brands from the Rueda region on their books. The release itself was scathing towards Marlborough Sauvignon Blanc. Both are contentious points. But these were not the points that rankled us. The one that got us more than a little grumpy was the claim that these wines have a lower carbon footprint than New Zealand wines, blogs Roger Kerrison at Aura Sustainability.