Around 10,000 revelers have once again flocked to the Wairarapa for the 20th annual Toast Martinborough festival. Spread across eleven wineries and with musical acts ranging from Rodger Fox to the Warratahs, the sun shone on festival goers throughout yesterday, reports NewsTalk. Toast Martinborough General Manager Rachael Fletcher says the day ran smoothly.
The future of National Wine Month hangs in the balance after WSET boss Ian Harris said he will no longer run it. The month long festival, which launched last year, aims to raise a peak of awareness about wine – encouraging new consumers into the category and pushing existing wine drinkers to trade up. Harris said given the 30% growth in the WSET’s operations worldwide, he no longer had the time to dedicate to organising it, reports Harpers Wine & Spirit.
Asia’s thirst for rare and fine wine is moving beyond the dining table as the industry seeks to tickle the region’s capital markets as well as its taste buds. China is already the fastest-growing wine consumption market globally, and industry experts say wealthy Chinese business people are now also developing an appetite for the investment opportunity that wine offers, reports AFP.
Besuited fat old men with black teeth droning on about malolactic fermentation is the last thing the wine industry needs if it wants to educate and attract younger consumers. That’s according to Pancho Campo MW, founder of the Wine Academy of Spain, who said that wine’s image should be “simple and sexy”, reports Harpers Wine & Spirit. Speaking at the recent Wine Future 11 conference in Hong Kong, Campo said: “The biggest problem of the next generation is that we are losing millennial consumers [aged between 18 and 25].”
A sale of Burgundy wine at the world’s biggest charity auction Sunday drew lower bids than in previous years as economic jitters hit home. The sale of the so-called President’s Lot is a highlight of the annual “Hospices de Beaune” auction, at which rich wine enthusiasts bid for fine Burgundy wines in a yearly sale whose proceeds are donated entirely to charity. But economic worries crimped enthusiasm at Sunday’s sale. Most auctioned bottles drew less than their expected bids, while the President’s Lot — a 460-liter barrel — raised 110,000 euros, reports Reuters.
Many of us love to soak in the big bodied character of the Barossa region, now moves are being made to ensure the major food and wine producing area retains its celebrated personality. New legislation was recently introduced to the South Australian House of Assembly to protect the Barossa Valley’s landscapes, heritage and scenery through restricting urban sprawl and industrial developments. However with the bill unlikely to move through parliament until early next year, the State Government has put in place an interim Development Plan Amendment (DPA) as short-term protection for the Barossa, reports ABC News.
Australia’s independent winegrape growers are being urged against taking a “business as usual approach” in negotiating contracts with grape purchasers for the 2012 harvest. Wine Grape Growers Australia Executive Director Lawrie Stanford gave the warning while launching new online information tools to help growers negotiate their grape sales. The online initiative was launched last week at WGGA’s annual general meeting in Adelaide, reports Stock and Land.
Wealthy English investor, the Vestey family, has extended its business interests to the Adelaide Hills by taking a stake in wine company, The Lane Vineyard at Hahndorf. The move continues the Vestey family’s escalating involvement in the Australian wine industry, concentrated in Victoria until now, reports Adelaide Now.
Anthony Barton has stressed his opposition to the practice of recorking old vintages of Bordeaux, dismissing it as “a racket”. The owner of second and third growth châteaux Léoville Barton and Langoa Barton confirmed that he refuses all requests from customers wishing to send their bottles back for recorking, a policy shared by many other Bordeaux producers, reports The Drinks Business. “I’m against recorking,” he stated, remarking: “99 times out of 100 it’s a racket.”
The organic and biodynamic winemaking lobby uses ’emotional black magic’ to get its message across, a prominent consultant will argue in a debate next month. Viticulturalist Richard Smart is going head to head with biodynamic evangelist Monty Waldinin a debate at the London headquarters of the Wine and Spirit Education Trust. They are equally passionate in their views. Smart says his approach to viticulture is ‘based on conventional science, and not emotional “black magic”,’ reports Decanter.