THE Beelgara Estate and the Orange-based Cumulus Wines companies are merging to create a venture marketing more than 400,000 cases of wine a year and with gross revenue of $20million. Beelgara, which trades as Wine Insights, owns the former Rossetto winery in the NSW Riverina and has a portfolio that includes the Beelgara brands and the Margaret River Moss Bros, the Coonawarra Riddoch Run and the multi-regional Beelgara Estate and The Habitat labels.
Agricultural service providers in South Australia’s Riverland are urging farmers to diversify, in a bid to halt economic decline across the region. Survey results released by Bank SA this week show business and consumer confidence levels have dropped in the region since February, and are now the lowest in the state. Member for Chaffey, Tim Whetstone, told ABC News the figures are a worrying reflection of the Riverland’s struggling wine industry.
For more than a year Australian Vintage Limited (AVL), Australia’s fourth largest wine producer, worked with psychologists to create a wine brand that would entice Gen Y, specifically based on their wants and needs. The product of the collaboration? YOU Wines. With 18-34 year olds representing 17 per cent of total wine consumers, an industry that is worth $4.1 billion annually, AVL sought to seize a market that before now has “failed to take advantage of its natural fit with Gen Y consumers,” according to AVL general manager Cameron Ferguson.
CHARLTON — A massive fire consumed a 15-year-old family owned winery here Sunday night, destroying the life’s work of a couple in the process. Sarah Benjamin said she was in the family home located on the grounds Charlton Orchards and Winery when she heard two large bangs around 10:30 Sunday. She went up to her second floor bedroom where the curtains were closed – but the fire was so powerful she could see flames through the fabric.
New Zealand fruit trade has become a heavy hitter as an export, helping to at least partly offset weakness in the dairy and forest products sectors. Data out from Statistics NZ showed the value of fruit exports reached an all-time high of $2 billion in the year to June, up almost 20 per cent from a year earlier. Wine was another strong performer, up 7.3 per cent to $1.4 billion in the June year.
Wine industry figures expect a new law clarifying a wine’s origin to come into force later this year. The industry has been lobbying government officials to amend legislation in the Geographical Indications (Wine and Spirits) Registration Act to have wine more clearly labelled. New Zealand Wine Growers legal advocacy manager Jeffrey Clarke said the Ministry of Primary Industry had been working on minor changes to the Act since legislation was passed in 2006.
People plant vineyards for a whole host of different reasons. Some want to make money (hey, good luck with that); some dream of producing the best wine in the world; some are attracted to the romance of it all — contentedly lazing under the shade of their own vines in summer, etc, etc. For Mark Lewis, planting a vineyard in Australia was a way of connecting with centuries of European heritage and tradition.
Dan Stinton hears the frustration of the hospitality sector when it comes to ordering alcohol and has set about making the task easier. He has established eBev which solves the problems of multiple suppliers by aggregating the portfolios of wine and beverage suppliers in Australia to make it easier for licensed restaurants, bars and retailers to search the wholesale marketplace and send purchase orders to multiple suppliers who are all in one place.
If a husband and wife winemaking team can survive the long days of harvest together, they’ve probably got a pretty solid relationship. Tim and Bec Duffy could vouch for that. Running a small winery nestled in Tasmania’s breathtaking Tamar Valley, the Duffy’s produce quality boutique wines with the help of their two boys and a very opinionated pet pig named Pinot. Emilie Reynolds reports.
Online wine merchant Naked Wines is looking to old-fashioned bricks and mortar as it maps the best way to reach its rapidly expanding customer base. The Australian arm of Naked Wines raises about $1.6 million a month from its network of 40,000 ‘angels’ or customers and in the past year turnover has topped $30 million. Naked Wines International chief executive Luke Jecks said the crowdfunded business was exploring how a shopfront would complement its online business and build on its service-centric model.