Australian wine labels may soon use terms like ‘hints of smoked sausage’ and ‘notes of dried hawthorn’ for the labels of wine bottles destined for the Chinese market. Researchers from the University of South Australia have spent more than two years working to translate wine tasting notes for consumers unfamiliar with many western flavours.
A bouncing kangaroo, like that brandished across Yellow Tail wine bottles, might be a stereotypically Australian image, but Casella Family Brands, the company behind it, built its company offshore. While other Australian wine companies built their brands locally before venturing overseas, Casella went the other way. Instead of clashing with his well-heeled rivals, with their extensive cash reserves, second-gen John Casella redefined wine as an accessible tipple and opened a new market. The result has been astonishing.
A Barossa Valley winemaker accused of deliberately opening the taps on four wine tanks and destroying more than $300,000 worth of wine will argue it was not him, an Adelaide court has heard. Trevor David Jones, 57, allegedly committed the crime in February at his previous employer’s workplace, Kellermeister Wines at Lyndoch. Almost 25,000 litres of wine went to waste.
Wine WalkWeather systems around the US have changed normal vineyard patterns. The bottom line is that the quantity of grapes being harvested or anticipated to be harvested is lower than normal for a variety of reasons. The coastal areas of Texas have experienced 40 days and nights of rains, clouds and cooler-than-normal temperatures. The result was an influx of fungus which was hard to contain due to daily rains and soggy vineyards.
American wine drinkers have dramatically increased their use of the internet and social media to source information about wine over the past four years – but only 11% have actually bought wine in the ecommerce sector in the previous six months, a Wine Intelligence has shown. While 58.5 million of regular wine drinkers say they research wine online, fewer than 10 million buy wine online.
Appellation authorities take a cautious approach, despite a surge in sales. Maximum allowable yields in Champagne this year will be lower than they have been in 10 years, as producers look to reduce the amount of wine they have on hand. The Comité Interprofessionnel des Vins de Champagne (CIVC) set the maximum yield and other harvest parameters on Monday, with the trend to go for lower appellation yield continuing this year.
Winemakers in the world’s Southern Hemisphere regions have an advantage on their Northern Hemisphere comrades—while grapes are still hanging on the vines up north, down south they are tasting the first wines of the 2015 vintage. Here is the first of our Southern Hemisphere Harvest Reports for 2015, a dispatch from South Africa’s Cape wine regions. The good news: South African producers were nearly universal in their effusive praise for the 2015 growing season.
Twelve South Australian companies have shared in more than $340,000 of funding under the first round of the Export Partnership Program. Seven of the twelve companies are from the food and wine industries, each receiving between $18,050 and $31,225. Minister for Investment and Trade Martin Hamilton-Smith said there has been a resounding response from South Australian exporters with 48 fully completed applications received in this first round alone.
The greatest winemaking nation may not be France, Italy, New Zealand, or Australia—it could be one you’ve never heard of. Like Slovenia. Nestled above Italy and tucked just underneath Austria, the central European country spent centuries as part of the Austro-Hungarian empire. Occupied by Nazi Germany, it was co-opted into the former Yugoslavia and for the last 24 years, has been a nation state in its own right.
WINE profitability fell 6 per cent across Australia in 2015 but central Victorian growers are bucking the trend. A report from the Winemakers’ Federation of Australia showed 85 per cent of grapes picked this year were harvested at a loss. Heathcote Winegrowers’ Association president Phil Meehan said most central Victorian winegrowers were smaller operations producing premium wines, which were still profitable. “Quality still demands a good price,” he said.