Boisset has continued its recent spending spree with the company’s biggest deal to date: the acquisition of rival French wine giant Skalli. The acquisition of Skalli Wines’ brands, vineyards and facilities in the Languedoc and Rhône Valley comes just a few weeks after Robert Skalli sold the company’s wine interests in Corsica. The sale to Boisset, for an undisclosed sum, does not include St Supéry, the Napa Valley wine estate owned by the Skalli family since the 1980s. But it does include brands such as Caves St-Pierre, Couleurs du Sud and Fortant de France, reports Decanter.

Some of Australia’s best-known winemakers have been forced to evacuate as a bushfire raging in the Margaret River area of Western Australia approaches. The southwest tourist hot-spot, about 280km south of Perth, is one of Australia’s most renowned wine-producing regions. So far at least five vineyards around Margaret River have been evacuated, including the internationally awarded Leeuwin Estate, Xanadu Wines, Cape Mentelle, Voyager Estate and Redgate Wines, reports The Sydney Morning Herald.

The growing appeal of Pinot Noir in Australia has had another boost with a Pinot Noir for the first time being awarded Australian wine’s top gong as Wine of the Show at the National Wine Show of Australia, announced in Canberra last night. The single vineyard 2010 PHI Pinot Noir from Victoria’s Yarra Valley took out the The Len Evans Memorial Trophy for Best Table Wine of the Show, as well as Best Dry Red Wine and the inaugural award for Best Single Vineyard Dry Red, reports Hospitality Magazine.

The story behind the AWRI’s Brett breakthrough and what it all means for winemakers can be found exclusively in the November-December issue of the Wine & Viticulture Journal, which has begun to arrive in letterboxes this week. As Daily Wine News revealed on Wednesday, the AWRI has become the first in the world to sequence the genome of Dekkera bruxellensis (Brettanomyces) – the most dominant Brett strain in Australian wineries.

New Zealand wines are the way to go for a casual drinking experience. That’s the message to be aired on Chinese television in 2012. Wellington business Gibson Group is working on a TV series for the Chinese to help introduce New Zealand wines to more of the world. The series, which will feature episodes about three Marlborough vineyards, will air on Tianjin Television some time next year, Gibson Group legal and business affairs manager Victoria Spackman said.

Blenheim lawyer and Marlborough district councillor David Dew’s Ben Morven Rd vineyard has a buyer. Mr Dew said the property is being sold separately and will be settled in about three weeks with a Marlborough buyer. He put his three vineyards, cellar door and wine company up for sale in July. The 6.8-hectare vineyard with one-bedroom house is to be sold with plans for a larger house, reports The Marlborough Express.

McGuigan Wines is planning to build a city vineyard – bringing 80 Semillon vines aged over 60-years old – in Dublin in September 2012. The vineyard will be open for nine days in the Irish capital’s financial district, complete with a cellar door, wine barrels, tractors and chief winemaker Neil McGuigan. Paul Schaafsma, UK & Ireland general manager for brand owner Australian Vintage said the company would bring customers from the UK and Europe to visit the spectacle, reports Harpers Wine & Spirit.

This will come as no surprise to most of you: Wine columnists are biased. Some have a special fondness for smooth oak and high alcohol. Others delight in herbaceous cabernet francs, still others in the sweat and guts of an old-school Barolo. As readers, we adjust, mentally deducting or adding a few points here and there when we’re wise to the critic’s unbridled enthusiasm for a particular style. But too often the bias is political, reports The Globe and Mail.

Boisset has continued its recent spending spree with the company’s biggest deal to date: the acquisition of rival French wine giant Skalli. The acquisition of Skalli Wines’ brands, vineyards and facilities in the Languedoc and Rhône Valley comes just a few weeks after Robert Skalli sold the company’s wine interests in Corsica. The sale to Boisset, for an undisclosed sum, does not include St Supéry, the Napa Valley wine estate owned by the Skalli family since the 1980s. But it does include brands such as Caves St-Pierre, Couleurs du Sud and Fortant de France, reports Decanter.

The Australian Wine Export Council is embroiled in a storm of controversy, with reports suggesting it is about to axe its export approval panel. Decanter reports anger directed at the AWEC has been bubbling for some time, as wines that have been lauded by critics have been rejected for export. In an October article in the Australian Financial Review, journalist Tim White highlighted two such instances.