Yes, Malbec may be the grape—and wine—of the moment, but there are other offerings on the Argentine wine list. This was the gist of the wine exposition organised by the Embassy of Argentina last month at the Rockwell Club, writes Cecile G. Mauricio in The Business Mirror. Philippine importers and distributors of Argentine wines were invited to present their selections and set up tasting tables, but before the event, Minister Jaime Goldaracena, the embassy’s trade attaché, made the rounds of hotels and restaurants to personally invite chefs, restaurant owners, food and beverage directors and wine buyers.

A tourism body in central New South Wales says it is sustainable, after securing its annual funding request from the State Government. Several members, including Dubbo and Coonamble, left Central New South Wales Tourism when it decided not to amalgamate with the Outback and New England North West Organisations earlier this year.

English sparkling wine is set to become a mainstream drink of choice, according to new report that shows over half of sparkling wine drinkers in the UK have tried sparkling wine from English vineyards at least once, reports Harpers. Wine Intelligence’s new research points to a better supply of English sparkling wine and a growing reputation for quality.

With a swag of awards in the bag, Palmer Wines is set to host the main event of the Margaret River Wine Region Festival in April. With just two years in the business, the winery was recently awarded the coveted WIAWA wine industry award for the Most Outstanding Cellar Door/Wine Tourism Facility.

A remote region of northern China that began growing grapes for fine wine just a decade ago has beaten the centuries-old French wine-producing region of Bordeaux in a blind tasting held in Beijing. A group of wine experts – five French and five Chinese – ranked the bottles from the remote and sparsely populated Ningxia region above those from Bordeaux at the tasting, held on Wednesday in Beijing.

The rise in popularity of Sauvignon Blanc in recent years has seen a drop in demand for Delacolline Estate Wine’s Chardonnay. But the owners of the winery, located on the outskirts of the South Australian township of Port Lincoln, were keen to make use of a good crop of Chardonnay grapes in 2009 so they decided to add bubbles to produce the region’s first sparkling white wine.

Federal Water Minister Tony Burke will front irrigation communities in southern NSW on Thursday to hear their views on a draft plan for the Murray-Darling Basin. So too will Opposition Leader Tony Abbott. The meeting, in the heart of the Murrumbidgee Irrigation Area in Griffith, is one of a series planned by the basin authority during a 20-week consultation period.

The Wairau Bar has been home to the MacDonald family for more than 800 years. The land at “the Bar” has been put to good use over many centuries, but more recently for growing crops, dairy or beef. Today a drive to the Bar provides ample evidence of the latest use of some of the land – orderly vineyards abound, but there are still cattle grazing in some paddocks and milking sheds are easily seen from the road.

The ban on glass at Blues Brews and BBQs has prompted all Marlborough’s breweries to pull out of the festival. Renaissance, Moa and 8 Wired will not have stalls at A and P Park on February 4 after a Marlborough District Council liquor licensing committee, under pressure from the police, banned glass. Marlborough Express beer columnist Geoff Griggs says in his weekly column today that three Marlborough breweries, and also north Canterbury brewery Brew Moon, have told him they will not be at the festival next year. Glass is still allowed at the Marlborough Wine Festival the following week, leading brewers to claim double standards.

The US. economy may be in a funk and consumer spending in a slump, but there’s one glass that seems to be more than half full flutes of Champagne to be precise. After seeing sales tumble as the recession hit, Champagne shipments were up nearly 22% comparing the first six months of this year to the same period in 2010, with a total of 7.5 million bottles shipped to the US. as of June, according to the Washington-based Champagne Bureau.