It’ll hardly rip anyone’s knickers to know that wine is a great partner for all sorts of practices. Take the pairing of wine with cheese; the French have been doing that for centuries. We Kiwis have been doing it ever since someone impaled a cube of cheddar with a toothpick and stabbed it into an upside-down orange. Wine and food pairing is so common that wine competitions now award extra medals to wines whose flavours favour a multitude of meals, reports The Wairarapa Times Age.

There is an unquenchable thirst for more knowledge of the world’s wine regions among Asians. According to Jennie Mack, managing director of the Asia Wine Service & Education Centre, there is still room to grow wine education in the region. In an interview with The Drinks Business, Mack said there was “still a lot of potential in Asia for education” and a “thirst” to know more from her students and greater knowledge surrounding wine as just a drink.

In a move to guarantee that Prosecco buyers and consumers are “getting the real thing,” the Prosecco D.O.C. of Italy (Consorzio Tutela) has approved adding seals on Prosecco bottle tops as a guarantee that what’s inside the bottle is indeed Italian Prosecco. The seals will be added to Prosecco bottles coming from Italy starting January 1, 2012, reports Wine Business.

The poor quality of the majority of low-alcohol wines in the UK is preventing consumers from making repeat purchases or trying other brands, according to Banrock Station. Neil Marolia, brand manager of Banrock Station, told The Drinks Business that while there is an ever-growing number of consumers who are looking for healthier products, the low-alcohol wine category was being damaged by a lack of investment in its image and quality.

What’s the trick of making great Pinot Noir? Letting Mother Nature call the shots. “The trick, in my humble opinion — and I learned this working in Burgundy — is not to force the wines to be something they don’t naturally want to be,” said Theresa Heredia, winemaker of Freestone winery. Heredia is the winemaker behind our wine-of-the-week winner, the Fogdog, 2009 Sonoma Coast Pinot Noir at $35, reports Press Democrat.

A team of Dutch scientists has found that resveratrol, the polyphenolic compound that has attracted a great deal of interest in the scientific community in recent years, can improve the metabolism of overweight men, improving their health and possibly extending their lives. The latest study, published in Cell Metabolism, finds that the red-wine chemical does appear to help increase the lifespan of humans, specifically by counteracting some of the effects of a poor diet, reports Wine Spectator.

A floral bouquet of rose and jasmine with high notes of citrus and ginger, finishing with notes of musk and exotic spice” – this enticing description is of a perfume, but could equally be applied to a wine made from one of the so-called aromatic varieties, which have been taking off in our vineyards in recent years. As their name suggests, aromatic varieties make wines that are more fragrant than most, with their naturally potent aromas something they possess inherently, rather than being a product of any winemaking input, reports The New Zealand Herald.

Devastated by bushfires last week, Margaret River was today named Australia’s Best Town’ by Australian Traveller magazine. The iconic South West wine and surf mecca won Best Town for its revered wineries, restaurants and farm gates, not to mention its rural charm and world famous surf breaks. The award for the fire-ravaged town is quite timely, as only yesterday tourism chiefs in the region were desperate to downplay the effects of the fire after a string of last-minute cancellations from tourists visiting the region, reports Perth Now.

Five privately owned Kiwi wineries hope to make $10 million in sales through a fast-growing export joint venture to the United States. Called Pacific Prime Wines, the group set up its own US importing business in Oregon in February and now distributes into 14 states, from New York to California. It has made exports of more than $500,000 so far and plans to grow those sales to $10m within five years, reports Business Day.

Sounds like the bureaucrats have been at the bottle again. And this time they’re meddling with something we Aussies hold dear to our hearts – plonk. Due to a change to the Wine Australia Corporation Act of 1980, Sherry will henceforth be known as “Cream, crusted/crusting or solera fortified”, reports Weekly Times Now.