Victoria’s western districts are renowned for the wool they produce. But the region is slowly gaining attention for its small but growing wine industry. The Henty wine district sits between the Grampians to the north and the coast to the south. Pierrepoint Wines owner Jennifer Lacey said the greatest task was making people aware of the wines the region produced. “The vineyards that are remaining are extremely successful, we produce incredible fruit,” she said. “Most wineries in the area are at least four stars with James Halliday, most are four-and-a-half and five.”

May is just around the corner, bringing with it the fourth annual Aussie Wine Month, the country’s biggest celebration of Australian wine. Aussie Wine Month, an initiative of Wine Australia, encourages wine drinkers to discover the diversity, quality and regionality of our local wines and share their discoveries by including #AussieWineMonth in their social media posts.

Grape growers in the South Australian Riverland are calling for a rethink of the marketing of Australian wine at home and overseas. Poor prices for this year’s vintage led to growers looking for answers. Riverland Wine executive officer Chris Byrne said the issues with the consumer perception of wine were an industry-wide problem and what consumers wanted was not being listened to. He said a marketing effort to help consumers understand that the Riverland was more than a bulk wine producing region was being drafted.

China now has the second-largest wine-growing area in the world after Spain, pushing France into third place, according to figures released by the International Organisation of Vine and Wine. The figures for 2014 showed China had 799,000 hectares of land devoted to wine growing, compared with 1.02 million hectares for Spain. Australia was 12th on the list with 152,000 hectares. France remained the biggest producer of wine in the world, pumping out 47 million hectolitres last year, while Australia produced 12 million hectolitres and China 11 million.

A delegation of 10 Chinese government officials and winery executives will travel to California to attend the first educational seminar sponsored by the Cal-China Wine Culture Exchange (CCWCE), taking place on Friday, June 5, in Sacramento. The seminar is a collaborative project with the Napa Valley College and the Sacramento Convention and Visitor’s Bureau held in conjunction with the Consumer Wine Awards and the Grape Escape Celebration in Sacramento on June 6.

A leading British winemaker is warning that the industry faces a nasty hangover on the back of a big increase in the number of English vineyards making sparkling wine. Frazer Thompson, chief executive of Chapel Down Group, said that competition was becoming “intensive” and he predicted that this would inevitably lead to industry consolidation within the next three or four years. He said the Kent-based group will be in a strong position to participate.

Named after the highest of all clouds, Cirro Wines had its beginnings in 2009, a time when things were far from rosy for the New Zealand wine industry. It is the brainchild of two flying winemakers, David Tyney and Richard Green. The men have more than 30 years’ combined winemaking experience from travels around the world and own Viscosity, a wine consultancy business based in Marlborough. The idea was to focus on developing an export brand for the Australian market.

New Zealand’s fruit and vegetable production has exceeded $7 billion for the first time, with exports now valued at $3.9bn. Horticulture is more productive per hectare than the dairy industry, the country’s largest export income earner. HortNZ says its $3.9bn export returns out of the $7.16bn production total are derived from 123,000 hectares of land, versus dairy exports of $16.9bn 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.

David Dearie, the former CEO of Treasury Wine Estate (TWE), has joined the board of a new digital TV channel dedicated to wine. WineVine.TV launched its new digital channel in Sydney last week. Which it claims will offer the global wine community a place to “view, discover, and enjoy a full-bodied blend of knowledge, information and entertainment, delivered by a collection of expert hosts.” Dearie left TWE in 2013 following the company’s write-down of wine stock across the business.

TASMANIA’S unpredictable weather over the past several months has made this year’s wine grape harvest one of the most logistically challenging. But vignerons and winemakers say the upside of the tricky season, which drew to a close for most growers last week, is intensely flavoured and richly coloured fruit. “The style this year is going to be really well-structured wines, very clean and refreshing and well defined by variety,” said Bream Creek Vineyard owner Fred Peacock, who is also a consultant to other vineyards.