Of all the wine types there is no more seductive grape than Pinot Noir, maker of the best red wine. With its brilliant ruby colour, complex aromas of earthy summer fruits and silky texture, Pinot Noir is the grape that many find irresistible. While Shiraz, Cabernet Sauvignon and Chardonnay impress with power and dexterity, it is the subtlety and elegance of great Pinot Noir that can soothe the savage beast.

The simple art of finding those special wine labels can needlessly bring on a mild anxiety attack in many inexperienced wine drinkers as they search for the best Australian wines to serve at home. I have seen it happen – the wine drinking equivalent of a fish out of water. The plethora of grapes, countless regions, and abundance of labels leaves our shopper flat-lining, sweating and sometimes almost trembling with fear, all of which in an ever increasing world of grapes, wine regions and labels, is completely understandable. So how do you find that killer wine on the shelf?

It is human nature really – to stick with the tried and true and shy away from new types of wines. Sauvignon blanc, chardonnay, riesling, pinot noir, syrah/shiraz, merlot, Marlborough, Central Otago, Yarra Valley, Barossa Valley.

Silky, lacey, fat, heavy, dense, chewy even rustic. – these are  descriptions of the textural wine club rather than the usual wine talk of cranberries, wet stones and a partridge in a pear tree. While texture is very much the forgotten dimension in a bottle of wine, with flavour king, the bottles I treasure most have always been sublime textural bliss. Sure the wines have been complex – recently a young 1996 Champagne, bristling with sweet, crisp green apple, brioche and almond aromas while a 2006 Martinborough Pinot noir seductive with a black truffle and red cherry perfume. But it is their texture that takes these wines to the next dimension – the Champagne showing a heavenly mixture of crisp vitality with the creaminess of age just beginning to build while the Pinot Noir was pure French silk and satin.

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.

This is Australia’s highest profile wine flavours style, and arguably its best red wine. The grape is believed to have come to Australia first from its home, Hermitage in the Rhone area of France many years ago. Some believe, again arguably, that due to extensive re-planting in France due to Phylloxera, our older vineyards are more like Hermitage used to be, than that region is today. Some vineyards of Chateau Tahbilk for instance date back over 100 years unchanged (and small amounts of wine are still made from these old grapes.)

There wouldn't be much doubt that if I asked people around the world to name just one Australian wine region, most would say "The Barossa Valley", which produces some of the best Australian wines. Why is this? Well, some excellent promotion over the years has helped, it is the home of Penfolds Grange, plus there are a myriad of other reasons.

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.

Spring has finally well and truly hit and what better way to celebrate than with a glass of chilled Rosé from your wine library. For the last decade or two Rosé has been in the wilderness. There were very few wines available and most were sweeter than a slab of chocolate cake

With so much talk around these days of sustainability, organic produce and other ecologically friendly practices it really comes as no surprise to see producers all round the country taking a greener approach to making organic wine and preservative free wine. In fact, as the health of the environment has a clear effect on wine quality, many producers have for some time been making changes in their day to day running of vineyards and wineries to help preserve our environment. The best news for us is that the result is often better wines and here is your wine guide to them.

Check out any wine shops and there is a fair chance you’ll notice that things have changed a bit on the wine menu over the last five years. Firstly there are new wineries and grape varieties coming out of the woodwork all over this wide, brown land, giving us a greater range to choose from than ever before. The second is that alongside these new local wines is an expanding range of imports from countries such as New Zealand, France, Italy and Spain.

Every year wine judges across the country sip, slurp and, most importantly, spit their way through thousands of wines trying the find the best wine label on offer. Often for two or three days a panel of judges wade through hundreds of samples with the best wines awarded medals (gold, silver and bronze) and trophies for a select few.

Merlot has taken a bit of a hammering of late, in part due to average wine making. All it took was a couple of body blows from Hollywood and suddenly Merlot’s fortunes, especially in the United States, are going down faster than The Titanic. But something is really a bit wrong here because Merlot should be the kind of grape that everyone loves.

Riesling from wine list australia is one of those love or hate grape varieties. For some Riesling just brings back bad memories of cheap, sickly sweet plonk from years gone by. On the other hand, for it’s fans, Riesling is a beautifully pure and refreshing white wine full of juicy, youthful fruit and there is no greater white grape on the planet. So which is it?

The blankets and jumpers are coming out of the cupboards, a sure sign that Winter is on the way and it is time to crack the types of wine well suited to the cooler months. And so are the hearty red wines that suit the cooler seasons so well. So pack away your Rieslings, Rosés and Sauvignon Blancs, wines that look great chilled down to refresh on a warm Summer day, and get stuck into some big reds and weighty whites to suit the season. The blankets and jumpers are coming out of the cupboards, a sure sign that Winter is on the way. And so are the hearty red wines that suit the cooler seasons so well. So pack away your Rieslings, Rosés and Sauvignon Blancs, wines that look great chilled down to refresh on a warm Summer day, and get stuck into some big reds and weighty whites to suit the season.

Dinner party time can send almost everyone into a bit of a spin with the pressure to serve up good food and wine matching, especially to the wine connoisseur. Perhaps the in-laws or the boss and his wife are coming over and you want to impress them with a masterful display of entertaining prowess.

You’ve probably already heard the story; the great grape glut of 2010. Last year there was so much wine sloshing round the country that winemakers frantically sold their wares to anyone that would take them. From quality wine regions, such as the King Valley, some producers had no choice but to sell their wines off at bargain prices, much of which ended up in the humble cask. That’s right, some of those cardboard boxes that are generally viewed upon as being the bottom rung are now home to some fairly smart wines, the best of which offer great value for money.

Travel around the vineyards of Australia and you will find tiny producers whose products will never hit local wine bottle shop shelves. These are the boutique winemakers of Australia. Sometimes just a husband and wife team working in the vineyard and the winery to produce often as little as a couple of hundred cases every year.

Wine fashion can change in the blink of eye. For years Chardonnay was the top of most white wine lists but this season another grape is proving a worthy challenger, that being Pinot Gris.

The change of season is well and truly in the air. Leaves falling off the trees, brisk mornings and warm clothes emerging from bottom drawers across the country while our taste for wine bottles changes dramatically.

There is one thing that a wine lover really can’t do without and that is good wine cellar design or wine storage to store their best wines as they improve with age

Let me say this straight away - I love everything Italian, especially a great wine list. Great food, great people, and most important of all, fabulous wines. Not only does Italy make some of the greatest wines in the world, historically they have also helped to spread wine around the world. For example, around 2000 years ago the Romans bought wine to much of Europe, including France. And the same thing happened in Australia. When the flood of Italian refugees came here after the Second World War they bought with them a great love of wine that has spread so that most of us now like a glass of wine or two.

There is no better way to enjoy great wine than by taking a trip through our fabulous wine regions. There you can sample, normally for no charge, the many fantastic wines to be found at cellar doors around the country. Most rewarding of all is often just a chat to the passionate owners and winemakers while tasting their wares.

There are literally hundreds of ways to spend Australia Day. Whether a game of cricket with friends is on the cards or a day down at the beach, Australia Day is all about celebrating what makes this country great. So here are a couple ideas and, of course, a drink or two to make the day even better.

Twenty years ago Sauvignon Blanc was as cool as a pub with no beer, and seldom seen as a wine companion to fine food. But then along came New Zealand, and more specifically Marlborough, with beautifully pure wines packed full of delicious fruit and like a pack of All Blacks they stormed the competition. So much so that some of the best Sauvignon Blancs on the planet now come from Marlborough and the world is well and truly hooked.

Well it is that time of the year again when all the family come over and it’s your duty to feed, and water, the masses with the best wine bottle labels you can find. So here are some tips to get you through Christmas day without any serious wine-related disasters.

I have got to be honest; I love a good glass of Sparkling Wine. For me there is no better sound to start a celebration than the pop from a cork as it flies out of a bottle of bubbly. Somehow they manage to put a smile on everyone’s face making Sparkling Wines the natural choice for any serious occasion. So with Christmas approaching there is no more appropriate time to get stuck into a couple of tasty bubbling beauties than right about now.

IIf there is one grape that this country does best, it must be Shiraz, one of the top types of red wine. It is the grape that we have made our own with wines such as Penfolds Grange wowing drinkers around the world. Walk into most wine shops in the United States or Europe and you are sure to find a good selection of Australian Shiraz to choose from.

Chinese is one of the great cuisines of the world. And we are spoiled with it here in Australia. Go to almost any city or town and you will be able to find an outpost or two serving Chinese food. Better still supermarkets are full of ready-made sauces that can bring the taste of China into everyone’s home. But the question is, what are the best expensive wines to serve with Chinese food?

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.

The first thing I look at in a café or restaurant is the winelist. Sometimes it might consist of a handful of wines scrawled on a blackboard while on other occasions it will come in a big leather bound folder, chock-a-block full of ancient vintages and great wines from around the world. Unsurprisingly, size is not everything with some of those massive lists of biblical proportions hardly worth the time it takes to wade through them while others, with a mere half dozen well-chosen wines, can be a tempting delight.

Different occasions call for different styles of wine, although discount wine tastes best of all. Most wines are quaffers; just made to sip and enjoy without too much thought. But then there are others that are there to impress, with their style and finesse, on special occasions. Sitting at the beach, a little quaffer will do very nicely indeed. But then as a gift for someone who likes a good drop of red, a bit more care is needed. The question here is how to find a good bottle out of the crowd?

Dinner party time can send almost everyone into a bit of a spin. Perhaps the in-laws or the boss and his wife are coming over and you want to impress them with a masterful display of entertaining prowess. Adding to the stress of what to cook is wine-matching, or the art of finding just the right bottle to go with every dish.

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.

Thirty years ago you’d have been lucky to find more than a handful of wines direct from New Zealand wine on shelves anywhere in this country. At the time there were only small, isolated pockets of vines spread largely around the North Island, and few had tasted, or even heard, of the miracle that is Marlborough Sauvignon Blanc.

You might have heard the rumor around town that Australian wine is in a spot of bother. Exports heading South, international wine hacks dropping bombs left, right and centre with the Victorian bushfires and water shortages in the inland and engine room of commercial Australian wine certainly not likely to help the situation in a hurry with many wine varieties in a sport of bother.

Ten years ago organic food was the preserve of students and hippies while today whole sections of the community scour their supermarket shelves every week, or even a local farmers market, for anything free range or organic, or even wine for life.

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.

Johannes Pauw and his father Rik arrive at the Penfolds re-corking clinic at Sydney's Intercontinental Hotel filled with nerves and anticipation. Would they be walking out with the official nod to keep cellaring the dozen bottles of 1981 Grange Rik bought for his son? Or would they be lumped with the dreaded white dot indicating the bottles were on the turn. This would give them the green light to drink them but it isn't exactly how Johannes had anticipated consuming this prized gift from his dad.

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.