WINE industry workers looking to broaden their knowledge of the craft are flocking to enrol in a free online university course from South Australia. A new version of the University of Adelaide’s World of Wine: From Grape to Glass course was launched this month on itsAdelaideX platform and already has 10,000 enrolments following the success of last year’s inaugural course, which attracted almost 40,000 students from 160 countries via the edX platform.

Vintage House Wine and Spirits, the distribution house of Angove Family Winemakers has been appointed as the exclusive Australian distributor for Barossa winery Schild Estate. Vintage House will commence distribution on 1 September 2016 and “completes” the distribution house’s Barossa offering with cult winery Cimicky being in its portfolio since 2003. Schild Estate has been under the watchful eye of patriarch Ed Schild, who this year celebrated his 60th vintage.

Angove Family Winemakers is zeroing in on going completely organic as the movement gains ever greater ground in Australia. Speaking to the drinks business, John Angove, explained that with 270 acres already certified organic and another 19-20 acres set to follow next year, “ultimately we’re looking at the option of the entire 400 acre vineyard being organic. We need to see what the demand will be but we’re seeing a lot of interest and other big companies doing likewise.”

FIRST Karl Roberts noticed early season stress on leaves in a block of pinot noir vines at Capella Vineyard, on the Mornington Peninsula. “We had a few days of excessive heat in the December of 2014 and the leaves were colouring and falling off in one block of pinot,” he said. Next, Karl — the vineyard manager for Capella Vineyard, owned by Handpicked Wines — attended a seminar run by Landcare about regional trials of compost under vines.

As demand for New Zealand wine continues to grow in the key markets of the USA, the United Kingdom and Australia, the industry is rising to the challenge. That’s according to Alistair King, Crowe Horwath’s viticulture specialist, who says the outlook is positive, particularly with a plentiful grape harvest for the 2016 vintage.

New Zealand entrepreneurs Roy Zane and Steven Male are launching a world first: a calculator which helps users work out how much wine to buy for their wedding or upcoming event. The free Wedding Wines calculator works on a simple four step process in which users are asked a few details about their event including the main type of food being served and the drinking habits (from tea-totaller to heavy) of the average attendee.

At the behest of the local wine industry, a new proposal would toughen federal labelling standards on a bottle of wine, controlling more tightly wineries’ claims of vintage dates, varietals and geographic region where the grapes are grown. Local vintners have complained that exemptions currently allowed by the federal Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau are misleading consumers and hurting the reputation of their local wine regions.

From a quiet region of Bordeaux where the high side of wine costs a few dozen dollars per bottle—one winemaker who shucked tradition now sells a portion of his precious liquid for close to two thousand dollars per bottle. To learn more I visited the eight-acre château (and home) of Dominique Léandre-Chevalier in the tiny village of Anglade, an hour northeast of Bordeaux city.

The prices of most winegrape varieties in the Murray-Darling and Swan Hill wine regions increased this year while production dropped marginally. Data provided by wineries to Wine Australia for the 2016 Murray-Darling / Swan Hill Wine Grape Crush Report revealed a 27% increase in the average price of Chardonnay, up from $223/tonne to $283/tonne.

Australia’s largest wine company, Treasury Wine Estates, recently announced an initiative to put a spotlight on the regionality of their wines. The message was clear. Australia’s biggest wine company was moving away from ‘brand Australia’. Should other wine brands follow? Emilie Reynolds reports.