It wasn’t so long ago that anyone who asked for a glass of English wine in a restaurant would have been met with blank looks. But English wine is soaring in popularity, according to Waitrose, which has reported a 177 per cent increase in sales just this week. Rebecca Hull, the English and Welsh wine buyer for Waitrose, said: “The success of English wine is a culmination of dedication and effort from some talented winemakers across the country who have gradually built the reputation of our wines from the ground up.

Moet Hennessy Estates & Wines, producers of wines including Cloudy Bay and Cheval des Andes, is due to bottle its highly anticipated Chinese red wine within the next few weeks, with an international launch due for autumn 2015. The wine, which is grown in the Himalayan Mountains in the northern reaches of China’s Yunnan province close to the border with Tibet, is made with Cabernet Sauvignon grown at altitudes between 2,200 metres and 2,600 metres above sea level.

China is on the verge of an outward tourism boom as middle-class incomes surge. Already New Zealand has begun to chalk up more business as more high-quality Chinese tourists spend more time (and money) during their visits here, especially on food and wine. CLSA reckons that outward tourism boom will gather pace as the country’s per capita GDP approaches a tipping point of US$8000, which will lead to a massive increase in discretionary spending power across the Chinese middle-class.

NEW Zealand’s fruit and vegetable production has exceeded $7 billion for the first time, with exports now valued at $3.9b. Horticulture is more productive per hectare than the dairy industry, the country’s largest export income earner. HortNZ says its $3.9b export returns out of the $7.16b production total are derived from 123,000 hectares of land, versus dairy exports of $16.9b from 1.7 million ha. CEO Peter Silcock said they were not out to “bag” dairy, but the reality was that exports generated per hectare were high compared to other land uses.

Up until the age of 24, Emma Jones was convinced she was just a beer drinker. While she grew up in Newcastle just down the road from the Hunter Valley, wine wasn’t something she found her palate could quite adapt to. Now four years later, Jones has launched Little Wine and Beer Tours Australia – a company that offers groups the opportunity to easily get out and experience boutique wineries and breweries on the east coast and in South Australia. It was boutique wineries just like those that her tours visit that finally won over her palette.

Australian wine exports have increased in both volume and value in the past 12 months, bringing welcome news for local producers in Western Australia. Kim Tyrer, President of Mount Barker Wine Producers Association, said that export growth represents opportunities for WA producers operating at the higher end of the market. “In WA we can’t compete on the cheaper, lower end, we have to be at the premium end of the market. China’s very into red wine, so that suits us. The US are also very much into a similar sort of thing.”

Manipulation is a much-maligned word, suggesting that the winemaker is somehow cheating. Clark Smith believes we should just get over it. Accusing a winemaker of manipulation is like calling your wife a whore because she’s sleeping with you. To dishonour our craft is both insulting and naïve. Winemaking is, after all, just a form of food preparation – the ultimate slow food. Chefs are supposed to manipulate things. It’s what we do.

WineTech 2015 will be one of the biggest and most diverse wine industry trade shows ever presented in South Australia as bookings for the conference continue to soar. Held at the Adelaide Showground, the event has seen more than 85 per cent of exhibitor space booked with a significant number of Australian and overseas companies participating for the first time. Hosted by Wine Industry Suppliers Australia Inc. (WISA), WineTech 2015 will be a dedicated trade exhibition targeting people in the industry with a direct operational focus.

Italy is the world’s third biggest consumer of wine, quaffing 20,400 hectolitres in 2014, according to figures released on Monday by the International Organisation of Vine and Wine. The United States is the biggest consumer, drinking some 31,000 hectolitres – 13 percent of the global intake – followed by France. But when it comes to wine production, Italy saw a decline of 17 percent last year after significant harvests in 2013. France remained the biggest producer of wine in the world, pumping out 47 million hectolitres last year.

Social media is abuzz with news that China has overtaken France as a winegrowing region and is now second only to Spain. It comes in large part from this BBC report that cites International Organization of Vine and Wine (OIV) statistics. The BBC headline — “China overtakes France in vineyards” — might well be accurate. The problem is with the first sentence: “The International Organisation of Vine and Wine (IOVW) said China now had 799,000 hectares (1.97 million acres) of land devoted to winegrowing.”