Over 95 per cent of New Zealand’s vineyard area is part of the industry’s sustainable-winegrowing push. But Terry Dunleavy, a former executive officer of the Wine Institute, has reservations. “We’ve conned ourselves into a preoccupation with sustainability on the environmental front rather than sustainability on the economic front,” Dunleavy said. Wineries are at odds over whether to back the industry’s Sustainable Winegrowing programme, writes Michael Cooper in the NZ Listener.

McLaren Vale producer d’Arenberg has released a limited edition sparkling wine called Dadd. The label carries the signature d’Arenberg red sash, which bears a striking resemblance to a Champagne house with a similarly familial name. As reported by The Drinks Business last May, chief winemaker Chester Osborn revealed the project has been one hundred years in the making.

Australians are being encouraged to celebrate tomorrow’s national day by topping up their glasses with Australian wine. New research by Wine Australia shows that Australians drank on average 24.5 litres of wine in 2010 compared with 22 litres in 2000 – an 11 per cent increase. In a bid to encourage further consumption growth, Wine Australia is encouraging Australians to be patriotic about the wine they drink on Australia Day.

As the 2012 winegrape harvest gathers momentum this week, a special milestone is being reached at Brokenwood winery – Iain Riggs’s 30th Hunter vintage. It is special because Iain Leslie Riggs, just ‘‘Riggsie’’ to his legion of wine industry friends, has had an inspirational impact on Brokenwood and the Hunter, national and international wine scene. He is an ideas man with the extraordinary ability to implement his ideas, reports the Newcastle Herald.

Here’s my Australia Day honours list recognising the special contribution of our wines and the people behind them. And while we’re throwing half a lamb on the barbie on Thursday, why not load the fridge with Riesling and stock up on some local Shiraz? Nothing encapsulates Australia Day more succinctly than charcoal, meat and a glass of hot red. Jeni Port honours Australian vignerons going above and beyond the call of duty, in Epicure, Sydney Morning Herald.

Golden Harvest Wines is celebrating the Year of the Dragon by releasing a commemorative wine. Businessman and former Adelaide City Council lord mayoral candidate Francis Wong has been brought on board as an ambassador for the wine, which was launched at a Chinese New Year banquet at Ming’s Palace on Gouger St yesterday, reports Adelaide Now.

Wine writer Matthew Jukes has joined luminaries such as Sir David Attenborough and Alan Whicker in being named Honorary Australian of the Year. The award was announced on Sunday night at the Australia Day Foundation Dinner at Australia House, reports Decanter. The Daily Mail columnist and Decanter contributor was given the award not only for his ‘long-term passion for, and on-going commitment to, the Australian wine industry’, the Australia Day Foundation said, but also for his contribution to charity.

When Will Priestley talks about characteristics of dark cherry and fresh lime, the virtues of the mid-palate and the benefits of soft water one could be forgiven for thinking they were talking to a sommelier. But the coffee shop owner is one of a growing numbers of baristas with such a passion for coffee that they have helped push the beverage above wine as one of the most popular drinks in the country. The humble brew now follows only water as Australia’s most consumed beverage, reports The Mercury.

Gas explorer AGL’s Hunter Gas Project will be be under public scrutiny today when the company reveals is latest exploration plans. AGL proposes two-dimensional seismic exploration in sections of two large licence areas extending from Raymond Terrace and Lake Macquarie to Merriwa in the Upper Hunter. The chosen sites are concentrated between Cessnock, Broke and Singleton and around Scone, reports the Newcastle Herald.

Wind machines were working in the Waihopai Valley on Sunday night, as the temperature dropped to almost zero. Stu Powell of Climate Consulting said in some areas temperatures were the coldest recorded for January for many years, reports The Marlborough Express. If frosts had struck, the cold would have stripped vines of their leaves, leaving bare canes unable to push sugar into grapes. That would have been a major disaster for the wine industry, Mr Powell said. “It would be like kicking a power point out of the wall. Everything stops.”