What's in your wine?

Ever wondered why certain people react badly to wine - ie have an 'allergic' reaction after drinking wine? Well there is much more to it than just preservatives says Max Allen in this article, detailing a little bit more about what exactly goes into wine. Well worth a read:

Read more here

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:

Australia's most expensive wine

Penfolds have just this week officially launched their most expensive wine ever, a South Australian Shiraz Cabernet blend called the Bin 620 (named after the famous Bin 620 of 1966).

What is most interesting though is that the launch took place in Shanghai, not Australia, a nod to where Penfolds believe the market for this particular wine will be (which is clearly not Australia).

Angus tasted the wine recently and believes that it's quite an intriguing wine for Penfolds, built in a rather less obvious style than the quite overt style that Penfolds is famous for.

Read Angus' review of the new Penfolds Bin 620 Cabernet Shiraz

Cracka Founder Shane Pettiona in Wealth Creator magazine

One of our co-founders Shane Pettiona was recently featured in a great Wealth Creator magazine, talking about Cracka, wine and auctions.

Have a read of the full interview here

Branded wines struggling?

In news out today Darren De Bortoli (of De Bortoli wines) has expressed his exasperation at recent announcements by the big supermarkets that they intend to double the amount of 'own brand' wine on supermarket backed liquor store shelves.

Mr De Bortoli particularly highlighted just how damaging a tactic this would be for diversity within the wine industry, an industry that is particularly struggling of late.

Read the full article here

For us here at Cracka we fully sympathise with his point of view - it is, quite simply, a dangerous situation that will not help 'branded' producers one iota, a move that will ultimately lead to fewer good wines and a lack of diversity if left unchecked.

What do we recommend? Buy from the little guys. Buy from the family wine companies. Buy intelligently...

End nigh for Riverina grapes

According to a recent survey it seems that the end is near for many vineyards in the Riverina, with as few as 10% of the regions grapegrowers believing that they would still be growing grapes in five years time.

Read about it here

From our point of view it's a pretty sad state of affairs to hear that so many grapegrowers are losing their livelihoods. Conversely it's widely acknowledged that Australia has an oversupply of grapes, an oversupply that will need to be rectified by pulling some vines out of the ground (amongst other measures), with the low quality, high yield Riverina vineyards the first to go.

It's a hard life this grapegrowing business!

NSW Wine Awards Trophy Winners

Congratulations to the trophy winners at this years NSW Wine Awards, a competition that I helped to judge (so you can sort of blame me if you don't like the results) and a worthy one for NSW wines.
 
These Trophy winners were chosen from the NSW Top 40 Wines, which were selected by a panel of 20 highly regarded wine judges, Chaired by one of the country’s leading wine experts Huon Hooke, who whittled down over 820 wines to this impressive shortlist.

And the winners are…
 
Trophy Best Young Chardonnay ~                          Mistletoe Wines 2009 Reserve Chardonnay, Hunter ($40)

Trophy Best Young Semillon ~                                 Two Rivers 2011 Stones Throw Semillon, Hunter ($16)

Trophy Best Mature Dry White ~                              Thomas Wines 2006 Cellar Reserve Braemore Semillon, Hunter ($45)

Trophy Best Young Shiraz ~                                     First Creek Wines Winemakers Reserve 2010 Shiraz, Hunter ($42)

Trophy Best Young Cabernet ~                                Winburndale Wines 2008 Fontana Cabernet Sauvignon, Central Ranges ($30)

Trophy Best Young Red Other Variety ~                Logan 2009 Weemala Merlot, Central Ranges ($18)

Trophy Best Young Red Blend ~                             Logan 2009 Cabernet Merlot, Orange ($25)

Trophy Best Mature Dry Red ~                                 Freeman Vineyards Secco Aged Release 2004 Rondinella Corvina, Hilltops ($75)

Trophy Best Sweet White ~                                       De Bortoli 2008 Noble One, Riverina ($64)

 
The results reflect the great performance of Orange and the Central Ranges in this year’s Top 40, with 3 Trophies going to wines from that area, alongside 4 from the Hunter and one each from the Riverina and Hilltops.
 
Of these nine wines, only one can be given the ultimate title of 2011 Citibank NSW Wine of the Year…and this year that honour goes to…
2011 Citibank NSW Wine of the year ~ Mistletoe Wines 2009 Reserve Chardonnay, Hunter Valley

Having tried that Mistletoe Chardonnay I can confirm that it is a Cracka - a lovely modern Hunter Chardonnay with heaps of flavour but also a sense of moderation and freshness.

For a list of the full Top 40 wines and more head to the NSW Wine Association website

Andrew Graham