Firefighters are bracing for tough conditions today after about 20 homes near Margaret River were damaged – a dozen of them destroyed – when a prescribed burn blew out of control yesterday.
The West Australian reports that on a day one experienced firefighter called “as bad as they come”, flames carved a path of destruction around the coastal hamlets of Ellensbrook to the north and Prevelly to the south of the South West tourist town.
The Australian Wine Export Council is embroiled in a storm of controversy, with reports suggesting it is about to axe its export approval panel. Decanter reports anger directed at the AWEC has been bubbling for some time, as wines that have been lauded by critics have been rejected for export. In an October article in the Australian Financial Review, journalist Tim White highlighted two such instances.
European economic turmoil will impact on McGuigan wine brand owner Australian Vintage this year, but it was unknown to what extent, chairman Ian Ferrier said.
“Our trading results for the first four months of the 2012 financial year are above last year. But given the uncertainty and volatility and its impact on our business it would be foolish to make any forecast at this stage for the full year,” he told shareholders at the group’s annual meeting in Sydney yesterday, reports Adelaide Now.
Despite the growing demand from China, the US is still the number one market for Burgundy. “America is still our biggest market,” said Louis-Fabrice Latour, chairman of the Fédération des Négociants-Eleveurs de Bourgogne (FNEB), after a press conference given by the BIVB before the 151st Hospices de Beaune auction. In his address to an international group of journalists, Latour explained that the Bourgognes Amplitude 2015 plan is designed to consolidate Burgundy wines as a “global reference for great wine produced from sustainable wine growing,” reports The Drinks Business.
The wine industry is being invited to taste the results of grapes grown in dryer and hotter temperatures that could one day replicate conditions in 2050. The South Australian Research and Development Institute (SARDI) is holding a wine tasting workshop for people in the wine industry in the Barossa on 15 December.
As France’s wine tastes shift away from bombast toward more balanced efforts, let’s imagine we could reduce that trend to a single wine from a single place. This wouldn’t be a wine made to floor you, overpower you or incite some rapturous state. It wouldn’t be a “great” wine, a high-scoring wine. On the contrary, it would be a wine that symbolises the waning years of point-score piety, a wine for which profundity is an option but not an expectation, a wine whose sole purpose is to charm. To me right now that place, that wine is Beaujolais, writes Patrick Comiskey in the LA Times.
How can Champagne help the trade through the tough times? That’s the question Harpers will be addressing at its third annual Champagne Summit, taking place on February 28, 2012 at a new venue for the event. London’s Chiswell Street Dining Rooms will play host to the one day summit, which has been designed to show the industry how Champagne can keep its place in an ever-competitive sparkling market and the importance of maintaining its image in the UK, reports Harpers Wine & Spirit.
Post-festival wine sales from marquees in the town square could be axed from next year’s Toast Martinborough amid fallout from the boozy weekend event. Allan’s Party Bus operator Allan Marshall says vineyards were selling bottles of “take home” wine to “staggering” drunks in The Square after Sunday’s festival so they could keep drinking. He believes their action breached the Sale of Liquor Act, which makes it illegal to sell alcohol to anyone who is drunk, reports The Dominion Post.
Australian wine is making a comeback in its second largest export market, the United States, new research shows. Recent market intelligence shows more premium Australian wine is being sold at higher price-points of AU$15-19.00 (up 23 per cent) and AU$20-plus (growing more than 4.6%) in the US.
Australian winemakers will soon have more control in managing wine spoilage thanks to breakthrough research which has revealed the genetic makeup of a problem yeast. Scientists at The Australian Wine Research Institute (AWRI) have sequenced the genome of Dekkera bruzellensis (Brettanomyces), commonly known as Brett, and in doing so have uncovered its genetic blueprint.