Sauvignon Blanc, New Zealand’s most popular wine export, will be celebrated in style next year at the first ever International Sauvignon Blanc Celebration, held in Marlborough from 1-3 February. The sold-out event is attracting over three hundred producers, writers and wine experts from around the world. Attendees will have an opportunity to take part in tasting and discussion sessions, as well as taking a journey through diverse regional styles, and the range of winemaking techniques that are used to produce this sought-after wine.

Sauvignon Blanc, New Zealand’s most popular wine export, will be celebrated in style next year at the first ever International Sauvignon Blanc Celebration, held in Marlborough from 1-3 February. The sold-out event is attracting over three hundred producers, writers and wine experts from around the world. Attendees will have an opportunity to take part in tasting and discussion sessions, as well as taking a journey through diverse regional styles, and the range of winemaking techniques that are used to produce this sought-after wine.

A BOUTIQUE Margaret River winery is quenching the thirst of the rich and famous at 33,000 feet. Churchview Estate has secured a deal with Qantas for its 2014 Bartondale Chardonnay, 2012 Bartondale Shiraz and 2013 St Johns Cabernet Sauvignon Malbec Merlot to first class and business passengers flying from Perth. It’s the second year the family-owned winery has supplied Qantas, after last year selling 10 palettes of wine.

Hardys and Echo Falls owner Accolade Wines has muscled into the retail market by opening its own wine shop near its head office in Weybridge, Surrey. The store is called 1853 Wine Club – named after the year Hardys founder Thomas Hardy first planted vines in Australia – and opened its doors yesterday. Accolade has already been running the direct-to-consumer online store www.1853wineclub.com and the retail outlet is an extension of this business.

Australian winemaker De Bortoli is to launch a new wine range into the UK in January aimed at the impulse market, the multiples and specialist wine merchants. The Palette Series is a range of single-varietal wines from cool climate vineyards that has been created in response to growing consumer demand for wines with provenance. At launch it will comprise a the Fresh Reign Pinot Grigio 2014 from the King Valley; the Gumboot Fruit Shiraz 2014 from Heathcote; and the Topsy-Turvy Chardonnay 2013 and Over Yonder Pinot Noir 2015, both of which are from the Yarra Valley.

Bill Moularadellis, managing director of South Australian wine company Kingston Estate, doesn’t hesitate when asked to name the cause of a sharp and destabilising spike in the state’s power costs. “It’s partly due to solar, partly due to wind,” Moularadellis told The Australian Financial Review. He said Kingston Estate was doing its best to manage the impost, but it was hard when costs spiked at times of peak usage.

“Our present western world is harassed, hustled and driven. It excludes leisure, tranquillity, permits no unexciting pursuits, no contemplation, no slow maturing of ideas, no perfectioning of individual style.” —Bernard Berenson (1956) “Why wine?” It’s a question I get asked from time to time, usually at a dinner party or in a casual encounter with someone who discovers what I do for a living. Typically, I offer a throwaway, cavalier reply such as, “It beats working” (which it sure does).

A French court has acquitted Thibault Liger-Belair after refusing to spray his vineyards against deadly vine disease flavescence dorée, in a second blow to the French authorities. Thibault Liger-Belair, the well-known Burgundian vigneron and proponent of biodynamic viticulture who owns a domaine in the Moulin-à-Vent cru in the Beaujolais region, appeared in court on Tuesday 15 December 2015 in Villefranche-sur-Saône in the Rhône.

PepsiCo director Alberto Weisser has acquired Portuguese wine producer Herdade dos Coelheiros for an unnamed sum and plans to expand the vineyard and improve quality. Brazilian-born and US-based Alberto Weisser, 60, bought Portugal’s Herdade dos Coelheiros from the estate of winery founder Joaquim Silveira. Weisser is best-known as the long-time CEO of agribusiness and food company Bunge.

There used to be a joke popular among English wine producers: “How do you make a small fortune? Start with a large fortune and then open a vineyard.” But if that was once painfully accurate, the burgeoning industry now appears to be on a roll. After years as the butt of cruel jokes because of its questionable sweet taste, and thanks perhaps to temperatures raised by global warming, quality has improved in leaps and bounds and sales volumes have soared.