Cracka in the news - The Australian (more kind words)

ONLINE booze merchants have experienced a boom as shoppers increasingly choose to have their celebration tipples delivered, rather than haul their cartons of beer and wine home.

Dean Taylor, chief executive of online merchant Cracka Wines, says his company's sales jumped by 175 per cent in the first week of December compared with the last week of November.

Read more on the Australian website

A wine club invite for a 6yr old

BOYS as young as six were sent wine club application forms, after a children's magazine disclosed their personal details to a wine supplier.

Subscribers to K-Zone magazine, boys aged from six to 13, received the Cellarmasters wine club pamphlets in envelopes addressed to them.

Read more here:

(Ooh now this is a rather dodgy action indeed).

Ailing wineries uncork the web

According to a report in The Age this week, many of Australia's embattled
wineries are online in a response to the own label pressure being exerted by the supermarket chains.

We get a great plug in this article (thanks The Age) but there is still an important message in there that shouldn't be ignored - namely, that Australian wineries are hurting and the move into more 'own label' products is only going to hurt them more...

Read more: http://www.theage.com.au/national/ailing-wineries-uncork-the-web-20111126-1o0fu.html#ixzz1f4ZO9kej

Australia's wine export panel under fire

Uniquely amongst many countries in the wine world, Australia has a rather regimented quality control system for all of it's export wines.

A quality control system that ensures that every wine that is to be exported must pass a tasting panel first, chiefly to ensure that everything is of saleable quality.

This system however has been criticised heavily of late, as a slew of top produces have taken aim at the technocratic and 'out of touch' nature of the panel itself.

The particularly catalyst for this action has been the increased incidence of critically regarded wines failing to gain export approval (such as this Jamsheed red) even though they've already lined up buyers for the product.

More details here:

Cracka on Business Spectator



You can’t see it right now, but we’re all having to walk through doorways sideways here at Cracka, purely because our heads have become so big due to all this great recent press...

Seriously though, we are very happy to be featured on the Business Spectator site this week, with Robert Gottliebsen interviewing our chairman Shane Pettiona about all things Cracka (and business).

Check out the article

Cracka on Sky News

Cracka in the news (again)

We are very happy to spot this little article about Cracka on the Power Retail site after our CEO Dean had a chat to Neha Kale recently:

"Cracka Wines has built its online retail business by pairing a fresh product lineup with an e-commerce model that offers a novel take on the online auction."

Read more

2011 Young Guns of Wine announced

Michael (Mike) Aylward of Ocean Eight on Victoria's Mornington Peninsula, is the 2011 Young Gun of Wine, announced at Madame Brussels in Melbourne this week,

Mike was ecstatic with the announcement and said the award was a huge boost for Ocean Eight and thanked all the winery's supporters and his family and friends.

Also announced at the event, which closed the Young Guns of Wine Festival, was the winner of the People's Choice Award with Rory Lane of The Story taking out the popularly voted accolade.

Read more

Here at Cracka it was a hard pick to decide who would win given the quality of the other finalists, including:

- Dave Bowley (Vinteloper) with his range of pure and crafty Clare Valley, Mclaren Vale and Adelaide Hills Shiraz, Riesling and blends.

- Alex Head with his range of luscious yet intellectual Barossan Shiraz and Grenache.

- Adam Wadewitz of Bests in Great Western who has reinvigorated the Bests range with some new wines (including a quite luscious off dry Riesling) and a refocus on some classic old styles.

- Andrew Marks from the Wanderer/Gembrook Hill in the Upper Yarra Valley whom crafts excellent Pinot Noir, Shiraz and Sauvignon Blanc (as well as a few cheeky foreign interlopers) in a fine cool climate style.

- Dylan McMahon from Seville Estate (also in the Yarra Valley) who is evolving the Seville Estate range of Chardonnay, Shiraz and Pinot Noir.

- Elena Golakova-Brooks whom crafts a range of intriguing wines under the Zonte's Footstep and Dandelion Vineyards labels, making everything from a positively odd Shiraz Riesling right through to a 'Savagnin Blanc'.

- Nick Glaetzer of the eponymous Barossan family whom now crafts some of Tasmania's finest Shiraz (under his Glaetzer-Dixon label) as well as top class Riesling and Pinot Noir at Frogmore Creek.

- Nick Spencer at Canberra's Eden Road wines, a winery which has just moved into a new winery at Murrumbateman in which they craft fine Canberra + Hilltops Riesling + Shiraz and a Tumbarumba Chardonnay amongst a large range.

- Sam Wigan, the Yalumba winemaker behind the 'Running with the Bulls' Tempranillo and Vermentino that have shown so much promise for the varieties down under.

Can we have one vote for all of them?

Wine online finds success with buyers and sellers

IF you want the ultimate challenge, it would be to sell a product that is in chronic oversupply in the softest discretionary retail market for many years.

Which is why Cracka Wines' achievement of averaging 20 per cent growth month on month since the start of 2011 with virtually no marketing is an amazing effort....

Read more

(This is a little love that we received in the press today) AG

Should Wine Writers be Certified?

As reported by Jo Burzynska in today's NZ Herald a group of well known Kiwi wine writers have recently signed a 'declaration of independence' that basically promises to never accept direct payments from a wine producer for reviews.

The reason for this sudden move is a recent focus on how some reviewers have been paid for writing 'independent' reviews. In Australia this sort of practice is actually pretty typical (and is usually acknowledged when it happens) but still it's not always all that clear as to what is paid and what is not.

For us here at Cracka we're really quite interested in whether this actually gathers momentum here in Australia, as we would love to see more transparency in wine writing but also understand that it's a pretty muddy concept to start wading into.

For an example, what happens if a winery hires a wine writer for an event, are they giving cash for reviews? And what about if a wine writer is commissioned to write content (not necessarily reviews) for a winery newsletter (such as Cape Mentelle's excellent 'Mentelle Notes')?

Conversely, one of our major wine industry publications only accepts wine for review once a fee has been paid, even though once the fee is paid the wine is then tasted blind. Is this acceptable?

What do you think?

Could China's thirst for fine wine, empty the cellars of the western world? That's the question being asked ever since Hong Kong has become the centre of the global wine trade, with more money raised at wine auctions there than in London or New York last year.

Champagne production is confined to 80,000 acres of French terroir about 160 kilometres east of Paris, but Moët Hennessy will soon be producing upmarket bubbly from a new winery in north-west China.

The West Australian government is considering adopting legislation to protect the wine-growing region of Margaret River from mining and development.

MOST petty thieves would be hard-pressed to tell a Barossa red from a Beaujolais. But one developed a taste for Australia's most collectable wine, Penfolds Grange, in the lead-up to last week's release of the latest vintage, the 2006 season.

The New Zealand wine industry should be proud of its achievements. May marks National Wine Month in Britain. In New Zealand, we currently just have Alcohol-Free February - no bad thing in itself, but given the huge growth in importance, quality and appreciation of wine in our country, the time seems ripe for us to start celebrating it too.

THE PRICE of a bottle of the very finest Bordeaux is about to soar higher than ever, driven up by a second successive exceptional vintage -- and by China's insatiable thirst for an investment.

AS the sun rose today it marked the start of a new chapter for Foster's Group, now an exclusive beer and cider company.

Could China's thirst for fine wine, empty the cellars of the western world? That's the question being asked ever since Hong Kong has become the centre of the global wine trade, with more money raised at wine auctions there than in London or New York last year.

AUSTRALIA'S most famous wine has jumped $50 in a year and will hit the shelves next Thursday at a record $599 a bottle.

WITH barely a breath of hesitation the 15-year experiment that was Foster's attempt to mix beer with wine to create new streams of shareholder wealth was yesterday undone by owners plainly as weary with the legendary multi-beverage strategy as were the company's board and management.

The UK is Australia's biggest wine export market, ahead of the US, Canada, China, and Germany.

A new market is emerging for New Zealand winemakers as eastern cultures develop a taste for the Kiwi drop. Asia is the world's fastest-growing wine market and it's one New Zealand winemakers want to be a part of, following recent economic struggles.

There's a growing market for insuring fine wine as even people who had never thought to insure their liquid assets, or don't even have a cellar, discover they have a valuable commodity.

Almost 275,000 litres of red wine will go under the hammer today from a Mudgee winery that has gone into liquidation.

Wine grape production is expected to fall by just 2 per cent to 1.5 million tonnes in 2010–2011, despite a challenging season for growers.

Aren't we getting sophisticated? The United States last year, despite wars, government deficits and a punky economy, overtook France to become the world's biggest consumer of wine.

THE strong dollar and changing palates have transformed Australia's drinking habits. Sales of imported wines have more than doubled in the past five years and have increased more than six times in the past 10 years.

A LEADING wine industry figure has broken ranks, declaring it's time to adopt a Henry tax review recommendation that would double the price of cask wine and cut more than $100 off the price of a bottle of Grange.

The abnormally soggy east Australian summer is likely to result in lower-alcohol wines from the 2011 vintage. Winemakers from Clare to Canberra, McLaren Vale to the Yarra Valley, say this year's wines will have moderate alcohol strengths, more like 13 per cent rather than 14.5 per cent, which has become the norm in recent years.

Back when Earth Day started in 1970, organic food meant withered, bug-eaten produce sold at food co-ops by tattooed, ponytailed hippies of questionable hygiene. Organic wine meant something “rustic” of equally questionable hygiene that was likely to go really funky in the bottle.

WINE production is forecast to take only a two per cent hit in 2010-11 despite floods in Victoria and an increased outbreak of disease.

The cork might have to make a comeback if New Zealand is to take full advantage of the booming Chinese wine market. Some Hawke's Bay wineries are already enjoying success with exports to China, where the focus is very much on red wine.

Extreme weather, poor prices and a lingering grape glut make for cheap wine, but the industry is close to breaking point, writes Mark Russell.

For the first time ever in 2010, wine lovers in the United States sipped more of the grape than any other nation — including France.

A Hunter real estate agent says he is fielding an increasing number of enquiries from Chinese buyers looking to invest in the region's wine industry. Cain Beckett says he is receiving at least two phone calls a day from potential Chinese investors, some of them Australian firms with established wine businesses in China.

The stock market is proving so difficult to predict right now, it’s almost enough to make you want to turn to drink. Literally. The Wine Spectator Auction Index is at an all-time high and returns can be plentiful if you know what to invest in. Perhaps it’s time to put the cork back in the bottle and turn your hobby into a worthwhile investment.

Wine consumption in India is likely to reach around 14.7 million litres (in volume terms) by the end of 2012 from around 4.6 million litres in 2008 registering a growth of 35 per cent during the course of past 4 years, says an analysis of the Associated Chambers of Commerce and Industry of India (ASSOCHAM).

South Australian vintners are polishing glasses and uncorking bottles as 40 Chinese wine professionals arrive in the state to taste its best.

The number of Australian and New Zealand wine producers has surpassed the 3,000 mark for the first time, with 2,477 wine producing companies in Australia and 531 in New Zealand.

Sold on April 2 and 3, it was the auction house's second-biggest haul for a single collection. The top-selling collection sold in November 1999 for $13.5 million.

BROWN BROTHERS will close its London office to help reduce costs in the face of a rising Australian dollar and changing industry dynamics.

Hundreds of fake bottles of best-selling Australian wine Jacob's Creek have been seized by trading standards officers in England and Wales.

Wine is being increasingly served on tap in Melbourne bars and restaurants. St Kilda gastropub the Newmarket has nine Victorian wines on tap, stored in 18-litre stainless steel kegs.

The ancient Romans are said to have pioneered a packaging breakthrough by putting wines in glass bottles. As subsequent generations of wine producers realized, wine tasted better, looked better and lasted longer this way. Glass also allowed winemakers of different countries and regions to tailor individual looks—tall, thin green bottles for wines of the Mosel, square-necked bottles for Bordeaux and rounder, brownish bottles for Burgundy.

There is a preconception about French wine that average consumers find hard to shake off: French wine is expensive. With wines such as the famous Chateau Mouton Rothschild or any other offerings from the five greatest Bordeaux estates easily exceeding several million won a bottle, the reputation is partially justified.

Drinking a glass of wine a day or a pint of beer can cut the chance of developing dementia by almost a third, according to researchers. Scientists followed 3,200 over 75s, who had no signs of dementia when they enrolled on the study, for three years. Of those, 217 went on to develop dementia.

FLAGSHIP Foster's winery Penfolds has cited growing demand from China for the rising price of its top-shelf Bin range. The latest Bin release, of nine wines, goes on sale ranging from the $30 Bin 51 Eden Valley Riesling 2011 to the $65 Bin 389 Cabernet Shiraz 2008.

Headaches after drinking wine are a common complaint, and I’ve spoken with several people recently who were searching for wines that wouldn’t cause them. The most common cause of a wine related headache is, of course, over consumption.

FORGET pulling a pint of beer, Adelaide pubs are increasingly offering wine on tap. While some may squirm at the idea, Australian Hotels Association SA general manager Ian Horne says the state's licensed venues are embracing it as a way to add something different.

WINE Australia is hoping a review of its key marketing and promotional campaigns at planning meetings this week will win back financial support from Foster's for its British advertising.

The U.S. passed France as the world’s largest wine-consuming nation for the first time, lifted by its larger population and an interest in wine-and-cheese culture among young Americans.

CELLARMASTERS bears the fingerprints of a number of boards and managers over its 29-year history, going through a number of owners, from small business, to publicly listed companies and private equity before it landed in the grips of Woolworths yesterday.

WINES from the Margaret River region had judges seeing red, and gold, at the 2011 Sydney Royal Wine Show last week.

VINEYARDS struggling to recover from oversupply face closure from water cuts, winemakers warn. The Murray-Darling Basin Authority yesterday published more than 160 official responses to its plan to return the system to health by mandating large reductions to water consumption.

Hong Kong, March 4 (DPA) Wine consumption in China is growing at such a fast rate that the country is predicted to drink more than one bottle per person in 2014, a news report said Friday.

The 2011 New Zealand grape harvest is underway with grape growers and wineries buoyed by recent developments.

THE party may be over for the wine-loving consumers addicted to low prices for their favourite tipple. "The industry is going broke,'' Australian Wine Grape Growers Association executive director Lawrie Stanford said.

TWO of Australia's most successful family-owned winemakers say Foster's wine division will struggle to make a decent return, even if it is separated from the CUB beer division later this year.

Mr Wahlquist joined Brown Brothers in 1990 as its chief winemaker and was appointed general manager in 2001.

China could overtake Australia in wine production within three years, a new industry report has shown.

The rapid growth of the Chinese wine industry has other more traditional markets looking on in envy but when it comes to imports, it seems the nation has become obsessed with one source and one source only - France.

Holding a glass of wine, admiring its hue, taking in its enticing aroma and finally feeling its distinct taste on the palate makes for a complete wine experience. Stefano Leone, export director of Italy-based wine brand Antinori, spent his day in the city promoting the experience.

The iconic image of an Australian with a long cool beer in hand may not hold true forever, with statistics showing Australians are drinking less beer these days than at any time in the past 61 years.

Police have recovered another $1.5 million worth of bottled wine in a scam that has left growers across the country without payments for their products. The total amount of wine obtained, and not paid for, has reached $6.5 million but at least one victim estimates it will soar to over $20 million.

Perhaps the greatest wines are grown in regions where viticulture has the most obstacles, where vignerons take the most risks and often teeter on the brink of failure; where the difference between great and poor harvests is widest. Regions such as the Hunter Valley.

TOP winemakers including Foster's Group's Treasury Wine Estates, Constellation and Orlando are under pressure to raise the price they pay for their grapes.

IN the first nine months of last year, the BRL Hardy wine assets acquired by Constellation reported an operating profit of $2.5 million. Back in 2002, the net profit was $72.2m.

BORDEAUX'S leading chateaux may be able to charge $1300 or more for their bottles, but hundreds of its smaller vineyards face financial ruin.

Organic Winegrowers New Zealand (OWNZ) are driving a campaign to have 20 percent of vineyards certified organic by 2020.

Archaeologists say they have found the world's oldest known winery in a cave in Armenia, indicating that humans were fermenting grapes during the Copper Age, more than 6,000 years ago.

Adam Lechmere
Decanter.com

China’s wine consumption and wine production are set to increase exponentially over the next four years.

According to the latest figures from International Wine and Spirit Research (IWSR), commissioned by Vinexpo, consumption of wine by China and Hong Kong increased by over 100% between 2005 and 2009, from 46.9m to 95.9m cases.

The organisation predicts that this figure will increase a further 20% by 2014, to 126.4m cases.

In terms of domestic production of wine, China is set to increase by 77% over the next four years, from an average 72m cases to 128m cases.

Those wishing to take advantage of this burgeoning market should remember that 90% of the wine drunk in China is domestically produced, Vinexpo chairman Xavier de Eizaguirre said at a press conference in London today

France, Italy and Spain remain the world’s biggest producers of wine, accounting for just under half of the world’s production of 3bn cases.

However, by 2014 these countries’ production is expected to decline by between one and seven percent.

This is due mainly to more efficient management of vineland, grubbing up of unprofitable vineyards, and concentration on quality by reduction of yields, Robert Beynat, Vinexpo chief executive, said.

The only countries to increase production will be Argentina by over 13%, Chile by 8%, South Africa by 7%, and China.

While the US will be the world’s biggest consumer of wine by 2012, with over 300m cases taking over from Italy at the top of the table, the UK is the world’s largest importing nation both by value and volume.

Britons spend more in total on still and sparkling wine than the French: Britain imported 1.77bn bottles in 2010, to a value of £8.6bn.

However, in terms of per capita consumption we are only tenth in the table.

In an anomaly, Britain consumes more white wine per capita than any other country: 44% of all wine drunk. By contrast, consumption of red wine has declined 8% over the last five years and is forecast to decrease more by 2014.

At the same time, the British are among the world’s most enthusiastic rosé drinkers: we are the fourth largest market for rosé, consuming 10% of the world’s total production.

As consumers, Russia, the US and China are expected to show the most growth over the next four years, increasing consumption by 20.7m cases in China, 27m cases in the US and 5.5m cases in Russia.

Of the 3bn cases, or 36bn bottles, produced worldwide, a quarter is exported. Vinexpo estimates that one in four bottles is drunk in a country in which it was not made. This figure is expected to increase.

FOSTER'S US wine sales continued to slide in December as it reduced promotional discounts to concentrate on more profitable market segments.

Heavy rain and flooding has destroyed about 20 percent of the Victorian wine grape crop. Falls of up to 200 millimetres have been recorded in Victoria's north west in recent days.

Aus Food News Tourism Victoria has unveiled the tenth edition of its official The Wine Regions of Victoria guide and, for the first time, it is also available in iPhone app format.The Wine Regions of Victoria app brings information about Victoria’s 22 wine regions and more than 240 wineries to wine lovers’ fingertips anywhere, anytime.

ALCOHOL companies could be forced to display nutritional information and list ingredients on packaging for beer, wine and spirits as part of an overhaul of labelling laws being considered by the federal government.

As 2011 gets under way, it appears the goose that laid the wine industry's golden egg has been well and truly roasted. While wine drinkers feast on its carcass - the cut-price sauvignons that look set to continue through the coming year - there's been little cause for celebration among a growing number of wineries struggling to keep their heads above water.

AUSTRALIA'S wine exports to China posted the biggest increase by volume of any major market last year. Yearly consumption in China is expected to increase by 20 per cent to 126.4 million cases by 2014, heightening its appeal to old and new-world wine producers.

Staring across at a crate mountain of more than 150,000 wine bottles, grower Jonathan Hambrook shakes his head in disbelief.

Australians could be accused of being obsessed with mono-varietal wines - and with some justification. Just look through a local bottle shop and you'll see the labels mostly carry the name of just one grape, such as chardonnay, sauvignon blanc, riesling, shiraz or pinot noir.

THE NATION'S great cliche of pubs filled with beer-swilling men is a thing of the past. We are guzzling less of the stuff than at any time in the past 61 years.

Hundreds of bidders pack the ballroom of the posh Mandarin Oriental hotel here, armed with paddles, heaping plates of gourmet food and glasses of wine.

The wine glut could be reversed this year because of east coast rain. It's ruined vineyards in Victoria, and most areas which produce wine have been affected.

The Australian wine industry has made more progress in wiping out the grape glut. The Australian Bureau of Statistics says the 2009-10 national grape crush fell 7.5 per cent to 1.6 million tonnes.

It's been a big year for the industry but even the perceived high points seem to be a poisoned chalice. The past year will go down in history as the year the strong Australian dollar wrecked our wine exporting drive, the year the federal government decided not to change the wine taxation system and, perhaps above all, the year it rained.

Wine Australia welcomed 100 Chinese wine trade, media and educators to Australia yesterday (April 3) as part of a week-long trip that will see the visitors taking part in vintage at some of the country’s leading wine regions.

AUSTRALIA'S biggest winemakers are standing firm against demands from grape growers to confirm contract prices early for the 2011 vintage, as growers face the cost of an outbreak of mildew.

As is my custom every year in this special Best of Year issue, I like to look back and identify some of the significant events, trends and harbingers of trends that have had the most impact on the wine world during the course of the year. Without further ado, the Top Ten Wine stories of 2010…

BUTCHER John Carnibella is not just handy slicing up a side of beef, he's also pretty good at nurturing a grapevine and turning its fruit into a half-decent bottle of plonk.

THE strong Australian dollar is hurting wine sales in the US, as popular brands such as Penfolds and Yellow Tail are replaced by cheaper labels from Argentina and flavour-of-the-month product from New Zealand.

IN THE middle of one night this week, an email from Denmark slipped into the inbox of South Australian winemaker John Geber. It was a simple and polite message of only six lines from his Danish importer that made it shockingly clear to the owner of Chateau Tanunda, based in the Barossa Valley, that the high Australian dollar was killing his business.

BEVERAGE giant Foster's has named the leaders of two separate companies to be created by a demerger early next year. They are beer boss John Pollaers and Australian wine chief David Dearie.

Yvonne May, Wine Australia's new regional director for the UK, Ireland and the EU, said she would do everything in her power to improve 'the negative press' Australia was receiving.

South Australia has a new wine region and it's the coolest on the mainland. Mt Gambier, famous for its blue lake, sea breezes and fogs, has been officially named Australia's newest wine region.

Constellation Brands Inc, the world's No. 1 winemaker, will sell most of its operations in Australia, Britain and South Africa to focus on its most profitable brands and shore up its balance sheet.

Woolworths has finally brought its Dan Murphy's liquor label online in an attempt to capitalise on its fast-growing internet business, with the company to completely eliminate its phone order business and digitise those sales.

Helen Pitt and wine expert Angus Hughson review several of the award winning wines in this year's Good Wine Guide. Here are the winners of the 2011 Good Wine Guide awards.

THE demerger of Foster's wine and beer divisions could see the maker of famous labels, including Penfolds Grange, managed from the US.

FOSTER'S says it has detected early signs of a revival in the fortunes of chardonnay after two years of almost suffocating dominance by New Zealand sauvignon blanc, which threatened to rob the company and the Australian wine industry of drinkers.

An imperial-size bottle of Cheval Blanc 1947, a rare Bordeaux find discovered in the secret cellar of a great wine collector, sold for $304,375 on Tuesday -- a world record for a single bottle at auction, Christie's said.

A couple of glasses of wine a day in mid-life could make women healthier in old age, research suggests. Scientists say moderate drinking can lead to ‘successful ageing’, and cut the risk of stroke.

So-called alternative grape varieties are slowly beginning to carve a worthy niche in Australia. There is so much interest in "new" or alternative grape varieties, not to mention obscure imported wines, it often seems retailers, sommeliers and the press think traditional Australian varieties are too boring to bother with. Shiraz and chardonnay seem old-hat.

FOSTER'S has begun a high-level global review of its flagging Rosemount wine brand in an attempt to resuscitate the portfolio that once accounted for nearly 10 per cent of group wine sales but is now suffering falling sales and negative demographic trends.

An internationally acclaimed NSW wine family has been named as the state's top producer, winning an award for the best drop of 2010. The McGuigans were presented with the coveted 2010 NSW Wine of the Year Trophy on Monday night for its Tempus Two 2003 Copper Zenith Semillon. A bottle sells for about $55.

THE Australian wine industry says it is continuing to address oversupply problems with total wine grape production in 2010 at 1.5 million tonnes, down nearly 12 per cent from last year.

Kirin Holdings Co.’s Lion Nathan unit will become New Zealand’s second-largest wine distributor after acquiring brands and wineries from Pernod-Ricard SA for NZ$88 million ($66 million) through a joint venture.

SPARE a thought for the Australian wine industry and what it must be going through at the moment. But once you have done so, don't make the mistake of wanting to help it out.

In 1977, Australian winemaker/manager Peter Lehmann was told by his company, Saltram Wines, that there was a serious overproduction of grapes and he should buy fewer.

NSW Wine retail bottled wine sales have grown an impressive 22 per cent or $14.3 million on the previous year in NSW, guests at the 2010 NSW Wine Awards Gala Dinner were told.

Hong Kong saw a growth of 73 percent in the value of total wine imports in the first eight months of 2010, continuing to develop as Asia's wine hub, said an official in Hong Kong on Friday.

If there is one wine that lovers of the grape should rush out and try, it's the Evans & Tate Redbrook Cabernet Sauvignon 2007. So say the judges of the Qantas Wine Show of Western Australia, who awarded the drop three of the most prestigious trophies they had to give out.

The industry's newest prize honours a vintage that keeps getting better with age. It seems almost perverse to be writing about the most exciting new trophy in Australian wine shows in the week the long-established top award, the Jimmy Watson Trophy, is announced.

From nought to one hundred in ten seconds. That’s not macho Top Gear talk, that’s a vague approximation of the way the natural wine movement has caught the public imagination. It was, apparently, a happening that was just waiting to happen, and 2010 has seen it hit the big time in all sorts of small and beautiful ways.

FOSTER'S will revamp its flagship Wolf Blass wine brand through a £2 million ($A3.2 million) advertising blitz on British television and a maiden push into the social media space, as it strives to lift sales of the premium wine in a tough environment.

THE Margaret River wine region is a pimple on a pumpkin, crushing about 217,000 tonnes of the total Australian crush of 1.5 million tonnes. But the region punches far above its weight. Consistently, Margaret River wines are at the pointy end of wine shows.

Three bottles of Château Lafite-Rothschild 1869 sold for HK$1.8 million each. The vintage 1869 bottles — sold in a single lot — went for multiples more than expected and set a new record for wine sold at auction.

Australia's thirst for alcohol was underestimated in official consumption records for more than a decade, promoting the "mistaken assumption" of stable drinking behaviour.

AUSTRALIANS are drinking more alcohol than ever - at least 10.2 litres a year - placing the nation among some of the world's heaviest drinkers.

George Fistonich is a survivor. The founder and owner of New Zealand's self-proclaimed most successful winery, Villa Maria Estate, is also living proof of the wisdom of sticking to a quality ethic. The risks he has taken, such as eliminating corks from his company's wines in 2001, have paid off.

Australian wine exports to China are expected to reach a value of $200 million this year, as more Chinese drinkers adopt Western-style drinking habits. China’s biggest brewery, Tsingtao, is putting its substantial weight behind the Australian wine industry by deciding to exclusively import Australian wine throughout its vast distribution network across China.

The number of fine wine producers is on the rise in Australia despite the industry facing 'difficult times', Langton's has said as it releases its new Classification. The fifth Langton's Classification of Australian Wines has seen the number of top performing wines rise 20%, from 101 to 123 entries.

Land hailed as Australia’s finest undeveloped vineyard site is under threat from developers. Construction company Fairmont has submitted plans for at least 1,200 homes and a major retail park on a 77-hectare site in McLaren Vale, just south of Adelaide.

Orlando Wines in Griffith is closing its Wickham Hill winery at the end of next month, leaving 12 people without jobs. Known for its Jacobs Creek brand, the company says the winery had become financially unviable.

The right varieties in the right regions help the Kiwis stay a step ahead of Australian wines. Those pesky Kiwis have done it again. They have trounced us in the Tri Nations. Not at rugby but wine.

IT'S tempting to portray the Australian wine industry as a vast collection of wineries all piled on a huge seesaw, with 20 very large companies churning out 75 per cent of the nation's wine down one end, and 2500 tiny producers crowded far up on the other end, each squirting out a thimbleful.

LOVERS of Penfolds Grange had better pray the company's new owners are wine buffs too. Grange is Australia's most lauded wine and the glittering prize among Foster's wine brands.

FOSTER'S wine division is entrenched at the top of Australia's fine wine market after auction house Langton's revised its index of top drops.

AUSTRALIAN winemakers might have won over Chinese drinkers with the flavour of their product, but they need to work on the snob factor. China is Australia's fastest-growing wine market, with exports growing 46 per cent by value over the 12 months to the end of June to $117 million, ranking it as our fourth-largest wine customer behind the US, Britain and Canada.

FOSTER'S new joint venture partner, Vok Beverages, will relaunch three classic labels next month as part of a revitalisation of the Foster's wine portfolio, placing a greater emphasis on a class of wines that have been historically overshadowed by Foster's bulging wine and beer catalogue.

GRAPEGROWERS are gearing up to dramatically increase production next harvest, despite the sector's debilitating problems of oversupply. The prediction has raised fears that grapegrowers aren't doing enough to cut production with suggestions there will be a surplus of 110,000 tonnes next harvest, Adelaide Now reports.

Foster's Group Ltd (FGL.AX), Australia's largest brewer, rejected a private equity offer worth up to $2.5 billion for its wine business as too cheap, sending its shares up as much as 6 percent on hopes of higher bids.

Australian wine exports to China are expected to reach a value of $200 million this year, as more Chinese drinkers adopt Western-style drinking habits. China’s biggest brewery, Tsingtao, is putting its substantial weight behind the Australian wine industry by deciding to exclusively import Australian wine throughout its vast distribution network across China.

International wine sales at the three main auction houses look set to reach a record $200 million in 2010 as Asia’s thirst for fine French vintages pushes up prices.

The 10 finalists for the prestigious 10th annual Young Winemaker of the Year Awards have been announced by The Wine Society. The awards are open to all Australian and New Zealand winemakers under 30 who are primarily responsible for the creation of the wine produced at their winery.

VICTORIAN winemakers are joining an Aussie push for a slice of an emerging Chinese palate for wine. While exports to China account for only $145 million of Australia's $2.1 billion international wine sales, trade chiefs have identified an untapped market.

Australia's winemakers are plotting an assault on New Zealand's lucrative UK export market with a new wine style they describe as a "sauvignon blanc killer".

LIQUOR giant Foster's is embracing internet wine sales as the domestic wine sector continues to struggle with excess supply. The company is one of more than 30 premium producers to sign up with Cracka Wines, an online wine auctioneer that is hoping to fill the gap in the market between the discount-focused Grays Online and the Woolworths-owned collectable vintage wine purveyor Langton's.

Premier Australian wine bodies have hailed a ‘new era of cooperation between Australia and the European Union (EU)’ as a new deal comes into effect this month (September).

A Western Australian Chardonnay is the world’s best, according to judges at the world’s biggest and most prestigious wine show, The Decanter World Wine Awards 2010. London’s Royal Opera House was the venue for Wednesday night’s unveiling of the 28 ultimate world-beating wines from the 10,983 entries in the 2010 Decanter World Wine Awards.

THE French beverages giant Pernod Ricard has reported a 5 per cent drop in sales for its Australian wine Jacob's Creek and said the gradual economic recovery in the US and austerity measures in Europe had created a mixed trading environment.

Chinese wine is being repackaged as Australian Winemakers have called for diplomatic action after it emerged Chinese counterfeiters are passing off fake Australian wine as the real deal.

Wine exports are up for 2010, but grape harvests have fallen as growers trim yields because of oversupply last year. Exporters are getting much less for each litre of wine, according to New Zealand Winegrowers' annual report released yesterday. It shows a 5 per cent increase in exports pushed revenues to a record $1.04 billion for the year ending June 30. But at the same time, the grape harvest fell 7 per cent to 266,000 tonnes.

For growers of wine grapes in north west Victoria things can only get better, according to the head of the Murray Valley Winegrowers, Mark McKenzie. A report released by the Victorian Department of Primary Industries (DPI) shows the estimated value of the total grape crush for the Murray Darling and Swan Hill regions dropped by 31 per cent between 2009 and 2010.

It wasn't the shirazes or merlots that stood out at the Boutique Wine Awards but the rarer types of grape. In Australia's vineyards, 72 per cent of vines grow shiraz, cabernet, chardonnay and sauvignon blanc grapes. That leaves 28 per cent for the other 100 or so varieties we grow.

Foster's Group, Australia's largest brewer, says the split of its beer and wine divisions was on track for next year, but was silent on growing takeover talk for its profitable $12 billion beer unit.

China's impact on the luxury French wine market has been enormous. The French fine wine index (Liv-100 index) is up by roughly 37% from a year ago, 24% year-to-date, and its upward momentum remains strong.

BREWER and winemaker Foster's Group has posted an annual net loss, and says it remains on track for a possible demerger of its beer and wine businesses in the first half of calendar 2011.

The Australian wine industry's $143 million trade with China could be threatened following the discovery of fake Australian wines in China.

Local wine grape growers are struggling. The combination of drought, increasing costs of production and a drop in the grape price are conspiring to make life difficult for local producers.

THE CANBERRA district is the talk of the wine world after a local red picked up one of the country's most prestigious wine awards. Collector Wines scooped the pool at the Sydney Royal Wine Show, picking up four trophies including the coveted gong for best red wine of show.

THE Australian winegrape crush declined in size in 2010 for the second consecutive year, with the 1.53 million tonne harvest down 12 per cent on 2009. This means the total annual crush is almost 300,000t less than it was two years ago, according to figures released in the Winemakers' Federation of Australia 2010 vintage report.

AS Australia's oldest wine-growing region, the Hunter Valley blends tradition and history with innovation and forward-thinking. Recognised as the world leader in the production of dry white wines, the Hunter's low-alcohol, age-worthy semillon is widely regarded as unique in Australia.

SALES of NSW wines have grown 15 per cent in the past year, yet many Sydneysiders are still refusing to buy them. While sales of NSW bottled wine rose $10.2 million to $69 million in the year to December, sales of NSW wine accounted for just 7 per cent of bottles sold, according to the NSW Wine Strategy.

Now that the harvesters have been safely returned to the shed and pickers have long since moved on, attention has turned to evaluating the size and quality of the 2010 winegrape harvest.

Despite being described by a panel of wine buffs as ''excellent lighter fluid'', Casella Wines' Yellow Tail brand transformed a small family business into one of Australia's largest wine companies in less than a decade.

Fosters has unveiled Treasury Wine Estates, the umbrella branding for its new demerged wine business. “The announcement today does not pre-empt any outcome for our demerger, nor does it represent fundamental change in our business model. It does, however, represent the acceleration of a cultural change for those of us working in the wine business as we return to a dedicated focus on viticulture, wine making and the marketing and sale of one of the world’s most outstanding portfolios,” said Fosters CEO Ian Johnston.

For Australia's wine industry it is the final frontier. But cracking the enormously lucrative Chinese market, with its 200 million customers, has so far proved elusive.

Vineyards occupy a tiny fragment of the Australian landmass: less than 0.02 per cent of the continent. Their psychological importance, though, is wildly disproportionate to their size. The unparalleled export success of Australian wine over the past two decades has won more friends for the nation than sporting conquest, iron ore or marsupials on yellow road signs.

An industry report on private-label foods has underlined the growth and earnings potential the category represents to the nation's leading supermarkets, Coles and Woolworths. Nearly a third of trolleys are expected to be filled with private-label items by 2015.

Supermarket home brands, once the domain of dried spaghetti, cotton buds and other essentials, are getting an extra kick, with Coles and Woolworths set to greatly increase their ranges of beer, wine and spirits.

The US company Constellation Brands, which owns Australia's largest wine business, BRL Hardy Wine, has called for up to 30 voluntary redundancies at its historic Tintara winery in South Australia as it responds to the drawn-out malaise in the international wine industry.

According to a survey run by Australian market intelligence business Food and Wine Insights, women wine drinkers are drinking less, drinking more at home and spending less per bottle at wine retailers and restaurants than men since the global financial crisis (GFC) began.

Australian beer consumption has dropped to a 60-year-low, official figures show. Supermarkets are marking up alcohol by as much as 50 percent in their own-brand liquor stores to capitalise on captive grocery shoppers.

A HANDFUL of wineries based in New Zealand's celebrated Marlborough region have gone into receivership, and more are expected to follow, as the area's popular sauvignon blanc suffers from a high New Zealand dollar, over-supply and a resurgence by Australian chardonnay.

WINE investors may be forced to adopt more sober expectations of returns should controversial superannuation reforms requiring do it yourself fund investors to sell their collections ­become law.

Australia has more drinkers whom buy wine than any other Anglo nation, but it's the baby boomers, not young consumers who are driving the market for wine sales, an industry researcher says.

Big Australian Wineries dominate our market with the top 10 wine brands creating the vast majority of Australian wine producing over 50% of all the wine in Australia. 

The Riverina based Casella Wine [yellow tail] range of wines have taken the world by storm. And so they should. They are excellent Australian wines which are consistently good. They have clearly won the battle for everyday wines at their particular price range.

Shelf of beer in supermarket Fosters Group Ltd today announced its plans to demerge its beer and wine businesses in a move to separate the thriving beer side from the globally unstable wine market.

AUSTRALIA will today launch a multi-million-dollar push to try and boost its market share in the booming Chinese wine market. The industry expects the Chinese market to become its biggest customer by 2015.

Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry Tony Burke has announced a $429,00 0 grant from the government’s Promoting Australian Produce program for Australia’s First Families of Wine (AFFW), a collaboration of high-profile Australian winemakers. The grant is being used to present a series of promotional events in the UK in an effort to bolster Australia’s second largest export market for bottled wine - worth almost $489 million a year.

nese consumers’ growing thirst for premium Western Australian wine has led to a new book profiling top local wineries.Agriculture and Food Minister Terry Redman will tonight launch the ‘Western Australia Wineries’ book, as part of a WA wine masterclass in Shanghai. The publication is printed in Mandarin and features 100 local wineries.

Here in Western Australia the Department of Agriculture and Food is trying to sell off more WA wines. This week representatives are busy plugging local wines at the World Expo in Shanghai.

Despite Australia‟s legendary success in developing wine export markets, the industry has recently come under severe stress and must take action to deal with the challenges it faces, according to a recently-released global industry report.

The State Government is eyeing off more export opportunities in the East, with an attempt to tap into China’s burgeoning wine market with the best Australian wine. 12 SA wine companies are being represented on a mission to China and Taiwan, visiting Shanghai, Qingdao and Taipei.

THE wine industry has gone to war over likely changes to alcohol taxes that could more than triple the price of a $10 cask of wine but cut the price of bottled wines over $27. High-end winemakers are at loggerheads with bulk wine producers over how to respond to the release next week of the Henry tax review that will recommend Australia move to a volumetric tax on wine.

There is a lot of concern these days about what we put in our bodies with more and more people turning to wine, especially for the benefits of red wine consumption. Fat and cholesterol are two things that we should all watch out for in our diet. Another is alcohol, although its effects on the body are complex and only just starting to be understood.

As far as journeys go, John Duval has certainly had his fair share. Once the creator of Australia’s most famous wine, Penfolds Grange, John was the globetrotting, all conquering ambassador for Australian wine, dining at the finest tables and serving up South Australian jewels he had helped create from scratch.

A voyage of hope. There are few if any Australian wine regions that can quite match the majestic beauty and splendor of Western Australia’s Margaret River. First there are the pristine white beaches that stretch up and down the coast. Behind the sand dunes lie rolling hills punctuated by the occasional outcrop of beautiful forest. It is a place that draws people from around the world, such is the mix of natural beauty, attractions and the enviable lifestyle.

Few things will chill the central nervous systems of Australian winemakers as thoroughly as the mention of Coles and Woolies, especially with the wine glut Australia. This duopoly can make or break a wine business: between them they own nearly all the wine shops. Woolies opens the battling with Dan Murphy’s and BWS, Coles will respond, perhaps more smartly, with Vintage Cellars and 1st Choice.

The federal government has rejected the Henry report's demand to urgently lift the tax on cheap wine to counter widespread abuse, particularly among Aborigines, of lightly taxed cask wine. Despite a lengthy and detailed case made in the report for the introduction of a uniform tax on drinks on the basis of alcoholic strength, the Prime Minister and the Treasurer ruled out changing alcohol tax ''in the middle of a wine glut and where there is an industry restructure under way''.

FOSTER'S Group has taken the unusual step of appointing a master sommelier to a newly created position of vice-president of luxury sales in the US. He will be responsible for the group's portfolio of high-end brands such as Penfolds Grange, Beringer, Chateau St Jean and St Clement.

Total Australian wine grape production is forecast to fall by seven per cent to 1.62 million tonnes in 2009-10, reflecting the heat wave in November 2009 in parts of inland south-eastern Australia, according to ABARE.

The world can’t drink all the wine being produced, writes Fiona Carruthers. The Australian wine industry has been struggling with the credit crunch, an international grape glut and deep discounting wards that are driving down margins – cyclical factors that should all disappear with time. But there is growing recognition that one of the main problems – a massive oversupply of plantings – will not disappear on its own.

California has its two-buck chuck, while English supermarkets have introduced their customers to the three wines for £9 ($16) special. It is not a good time to be exposed to the markets that have been the poster boys for global recession. And this doesn't take into account the massive gains by the Australian dollar against their respective currencies, which has meant that prices have been squeezed even further in Australian-dollar terms just to keep them flat in local currencies.

Consumers have plenty of reasons to party on, but for Australia’s winemakers, the hangover has begun, reports Colin Kruger. You know the Australian wine industry is in trouble when filtered water costs more than wine. In the lead up to Christmas, discount liquor merchant Dan Murphy's had cleanskin bottles of chardonnay and cabernet merlot for $1.99, a price point affectionately referred to in the US as "two buck chuck". It means, litre for litre, it is possible to buy wine that costs less than some bottled water.

Australia’s wine surplus exceeds 100 million cases, according to a joint statement by four industry organisations. Led by the Winemakers’ Federation of Australia, the group says Australia is producing 20 million to 40 million cases a year, more than it is selling, despite droughts, frosts, fires and climate change. This is as much wine as we export to Britain each year.

BILL CALABRIA, the owner of West End Estate at Griffith, began his brutal round of interviews in June last year. He called each of his growers one by one to the winery for a meeting. They knew to expect bad news. Some brought their sons, others their wives - the wine business is still family business in Griffith. On his side of the conference table Mr Calabria had his son, Michael, West End's general manager, and his chief wine maker, Brian Currie.

ADAM FOSTER'S annual wine production of 2500 cases is a fraction of the sales by Foster's Group, the world's second-largest producer. Yet it's a factor in breaking up the rival he shares a name with. Foster's, the brewer that sells beer in 150 countries, outlayed $7 billion building its wine unit, acquiring such labels as Beringer in California's Napa Valley.

Grape glut ... Taylors Wines CEO Mitchell Taylor is calling for a restructure of the industry. TAYLORS Wines chief executive Mitchell Taylor has warned it could take up to four years for the Australian wine industry to recover from the crippling grape glut that has slashed vineyard valuations and pushed many winemakers into losses.

WINE lovers will enjoy record low prices for cheap wine in the months to come as the industry struggles to cope with its biggest glut in two decades. A report released this week says the industry needs to reduce production by 20 per cent. That is good news for wine drinkers, who will see cleanskin prices stay as low as $2 a bottle, the Herald Sun reports.

A major Riverina wine producer says the glut affecting the industry could continue until 2014. The problem has been forecast for years and wineries are now telling traditional suppliers they cannot take their product. De Bortolis Wines has recently told more than 12 of its grower suppliers it does not need their grapes in future.

Dedicated “wineheads” still prefer the emotive experience of sifting through racks of wine in a favourite bottle shop but buying wine online can give consumers a great option to purchase quality wine at a great price. In fact, there’s such a profusion of offers and deals online that it gets quite confusing, from retailers and auctions to wine clubs and traditional wine merchants with a strong internet presence.

WANT TO buy a vineyard? Not only will you be spoilt for choice - but when it comes to Australia's iconic winemaking regions, the prices have never been lower. Take Australian Vintage's historic 300ha vineyard Cooraminta, in the New South Wales Central Ranges west of Sydney. When it was planted in the 1980s, Cooraminta was touted as the largest single planting in the southern hemisphere and its fruit went to a range of major wine labels, including Jacob's Creek Reserve. Now, like so many other famous vineyards, it has been sold for a relative song. Cooraminta's new owners, local lawyer Grant Chamberlain and his brother-in-law, didn't need much encouragement to pounce once the "for sale" sign went up. The price was more than right.

PETER LEHMANN WINES has warned that the Australian wine industry must rip out 35,000 hectares of vineyards to restore the imbalance between supply and demand. The Barossa Valley winemaker said the trading conditions were the worst in 15 years, there being a national production potential of more than 2 million tonnes but a current sales requirement of only 1.5 million tonnes.

Australia’s massively inefficient and heavily rorted wine industry could get the restructuring it badly needs – if the Rudd Government accepts the Henry tax review recommendations and introduces a flat tax across all categories and removes the costly tax exemption enjoyed by smaller wineries.

Well-paid single tradesmen are responsible for more than half of Australia’s alcohol consumption, new research shows. Just 17 per cent of drinking Australians down 53 per cent of all alcohol sold – an average of three or more glasses a day. Roy Morgan Research found heavy drinkers were more likely to be males aged 10 to 35, single, earning a good income and over-represented by tradesmen.

Despite the global financial crisis Australians spent more last year on takeaway food, bottle shop liquor, pharmaceuticals and cosmetics. However, Australian Bureau of Statistics show consumers cut back spending on newspapers, books, sporting goods, toys and games, as well as electrical and electronic goods.

The market leaders are overproducing but it’s not preventing poorer-quality buyers’ own brand from making big sales. With the serious wine glut, you might think better quality wine would filter down to cheaper labels such as Buyer’s Own Brands (BOBs) but you’d be sadly mistaken. By my palate, at a tasting comparing BOBs with regular market-leading brands, there was little difference in quality between the two. Both groups were somewhat disappointing.

John Casella, the boss and patriarch of Casella Wines, the Griffith-based winery that owns the Yellow Tail brand, has thrown his weight behind calls for vineyards to be ripped out to fix the oversupply facing the sector. Mr Casella said there had to be a readjustment of grape supply to end a wine glut that has seen prices and profit margins tumble, marking some operations uneconomic.

Plonk or premium can be picked up for half the price on the internet, writes Julie-anne Sprague. A resident of Picketts Valley n the NSW Central Coast is typical of a relatively new breed of wine consumer heading to the internet to snare a bargain at auction. Under the hammer recently were 12 bottles of award-winning 2002 merlot from premium West Australian winery Sandalford.

De Bortoli Wines, one of Australia’s largest private wine groups, has crashed into the red, posting a net loss of $1.6 million after saturated markets drained its margins and a slowing global economy triggered investment and foreign currency losses. The third-generation family business established in 1928 is not the only Australian wine company to buckle under the weight of the sector’s chronic oversupply of grapes, which has helped flood the market with cheap product.

Higher-priced wines sold faster than ones under $US5 a bottle. Constellation Brands, of the world’s biggest winemakers, has booked $US100million ($107 millions) in impairments against embattled Australian wined business and warned of flat growth in the United States this year as high unemployment saps sales at restaurants, cafes and pubs.

Mainland China's wine imports have soared more than ten-fold in the past few years but foreign producers hoping to cash in on the boom are warning the market is fickle and not for the faint of heart. Mainland China is on track to import 10 million cases of wine this year, up from 840,000 in 2004, according to the Hong Kong Trade Development Council (HKTDC), which did not provide separate figures for Hong Kong's imports.

While parents, the government and sports management groups are becoming increasingly vocal about the impact of alcoholism and teenage binge drinking, Coles and Woolworths are cashing in on Australia’s love affair with liquor by undertaking a spending spree to shore up their share of the alcohol sales market, according to the latest research from business information analysts IBISWorld.

THE quality of Australia's 2010 wine vintage promises to be the best in a decade, and drinkers will also continue to savour some heavy discounting. Fewer grapes were produced in the 2010 harvest, with the Winemakers Federation of Australia estimating the winegrape crush to be 1.53 million tonnes, down 12 per cent on last year, which was 5 per cent less than the year before.