Thu, 24 Apr 2003

US: Luxury wineries cutting prices
ST. HELENA --- High-end vintners Merryvale Vineyards and Von Strasser Winery are bucking prevailing industry trends by lowering prices to move cases. Shipments from 90,000-case Merryvale have more than doubled in the past six years, and case sales since the current fiscal year started in July are 14% ahead of the same period last year. So why has Merryvale lowered suggested prices as much as 20% on some 2000 vintage reserve wines to be released in May?.....

How the type of wine you buy can give away your age
What type of wine a person buys could give away more than simply whether they prefer red or white, according to a report published yesterday. The study claimed attitudes to wine change depending on the age of the drinker and if they have family.....

UK: Wine Industry Split Over Budget
The response from the UK's drinks trade to Gordon Brown's latest Budget was mixed, with spirits producers upbeat and wine importers once again grumbling about cross-border shopping.....

Austria's wine exports reach new records
Vienna - Austrian wine producers exported more wine than they imported for the first time since the end of the Second World War. Wine producers exported 60.3 million litres of wine while wine imports were almost 10 million litres lower at 51.4 million litres.....

South Africa: WOSA to launch £1m campaign in UK
South Africa hopes to add another 20% increase in wine volumes into the UK on top of last year's 26% increase, with, among others, a £1m generic spend in the autumn.....

Experts recreate the Pompeii wine praised by Pliny
The ancient wine of Pompeii, once praised by Pliny, has been recreated for the first time since the town was destroyed by the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in AD 79......

South Africa: Wine thief caught liquored up on the job
A wine estate has suffered incalculable damage after burglars helped themselves to priceless wines in a private collection. John Winshaw, from the Kleine Welmoed estate outside Stellenbosch, arrived home after spending the weekend away to assess the extent of the damage....

NZ: Good quality grapes, but low yield
After one of the most challenging seasons ever, Marlborough's wine industry is reporting a good quality, if low yield, vintage. Only a few blocks of grapes remain to be harvested, wrapping up a season dogged by frost during flowering, rain during harvest and the grape fungus botrytis.....

Australia: Grape income halved
Wine grape growers in the Alpine valleys have lost more than $4 million as a result of crops being damaged by smoke from the North East bushfires. The president of the Alpine Valley Wine Region, Mr Allan McGuffie, said yesterday harvesting was completed last week and the feared financial impact of the North East bushfires had been realised.....

Tues, 22 Apr 2003

Australian wine push in Italy
Cristina Sirca sniffs, swirls and wills. "Buonissimo," she proclaims, savouring her first glass of Australian cabernet sauvignon merlot. At Vinitaly, the world's biggest wine fair, curious connoisseurs lined up to sample Australia's acclaimed New World wines.....
Bordeaux beats boycott with 'best vintage of all time'
Just when it seemed safe to boycott all things French, they turn up with perhaps the greatest wine ever. Francophobes were confident the best Australia, Chile and South Africa could offer would see them through the summer party season - the wines of the New World and the politics of New Europe united in an unlikely axis.....

Australia: Fungus endangers wine sector
A massive door-to-door search is under way in the nation's Top End to find and destroy an exotic leaf fungus, which left unchecked could wreak havoc on Australia's $4.4 billion wine and table grape industries.....

Australia: Wine growth slows in the crush
On the southern edge of the town of Nuriootpa, in the heart of South Australia's Barossa Valley, sits the Elderton Winery - 28 hectares of vineyards first planted in the early 1900s and that now spread along the banks of the North Para river......

Question: What is a "cooked" wine?
Oxygen and heat are bitter enemies of anyone who wants to age a wine to perfection. In the unfortunate instance of a wine becoming exposed to excessive heat, it takes on "cooked" characteristics......

South Africa: Grape hijack 'syndicate work'
Cape Town - The well-planned theft of nearly two tons of choice grapes from a Boland wine farm has raised fears that an organised crime syndicate may be at work in the winelands.....

Can France Put a Cork In It?
Marcel Guigal is worried. every year the celebrated winemaker from the town of Ampuis, near Lyons, ships 27% of his 460,000 cases of Hermitage, Châteauneuf-du-Pape and other appellations to the United States......

US: Man Charged with Stealing Wine from Church
Some folks just can't get enough church on Easter Sunday. San Antonio detectives say a 52 year old man was captured inside St. Michael's Church with several items in his arms, including church candles, and some of the church's sacramental wine.

Mon, 21 Apr 2003

El Dorado County to fight vine mealybugs
El Dorado County supervisors have authorized a cost-sharing program to combat the vine mealybug, a pest that threatens the county's $163 million wine grape industry......

Europeans spit chips over oak in Australian wine
It has been cast as a battle between old world and new. With Australian wine exports soaring, local winemakers say they are being targeted by rivals in France, Italy and Spain seeking to put a cork in the rising cheer of antipodean plonk with young European consumers......

US: Plan would let micro-wineries shift away from growing
A proposal that would allow small wineries to focus on winemaking rather than grape growing could boost the market for wine grapes, but there also is fear that it would undermine El Dorado county's agricultural zoning....

New talk of Diageo move on Southcorp
Talk of Diageo making a $3 billion takeover for struggling winemaker Southcorp has flared again based on indications given by the UK spirits and wine group to investment bank ABN AMRO.....

Australia: Stolen wine seized
A million-dollar stolen wine racket has been cracked by Broadmeadows and South Australian police. Bottles of vintage Grange Hermitage worth about $250,000 and dating from the 1960s, '70s and '80s, were seized in raids in the Barossa Valley on Monday, carried out by Victorian and South Australian detectives.....

Sun, 20 Apr 2003

Bidders poised to wine and dine Southcorp
The drinks industry is gearing up for a wave of consolidation after Southcorp, the Australian owner of Penfolds, Lindemans and Rosemont Estate, emerged as the latest takeover target......

Top court to settle Napa grape fight
The California Supreme Court will decide whether wine with a Napa brand must be made of Napa grapes, stepping into a fight between local vintners and a non-Napa winery over state and federal labeling standards......

French Champagne Crop Hit by Freak April Frosts
Up to half of France's 2003 champagne crop may be lost after vines were hit by freak frosts that producers described as the worst in almost 50 years.......

New Vintage of Wine Consumers are Young and Ethnic
Scarborough Research unveiled the results of its national survey of US wine consumers, which indicates that a new vintage of wine purchasers is hailing from a young and ethnic demographic.