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.

I was lucky enough to visit esteemed chef Neil Perry's Rockpool Bar & Grill on Melbourne's Southbank last Monday. It might just have been my most revered long lunch ever.

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

Shiraz has been Australia's boon and bane. It has taken blame for the tanking of the market for high-end Australian wine - cursed as the grape that strove to be both fancy and populist at the same time.

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.

To develop a taste for wine, keep tasting — and write down as many specifics as you can when you find a wine you like. Is it red or white? What grape? What region? And so on, so that over time you can see a profile of the particular qualities that please you.

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.