Some people may wrongly believe that Rosé wine is made by mixing red and white wine but vintners should know better — as one French winemaking group learned when they were hit with a fine for doing just that. The Vinovalie wine-growing association, based in the southwestern Tarn region, was fined more than 10,000 euros (11,000) for turning to the simple art of colour mixing to obtain the pink-hued drink, a legal source said Friday.
THE 2016 New Zealand Chardonnay and Sparkling Wine Symposium was in full swing yesterday. Attendees start the day with the event entitled Past, Present and Beyond . . . The Tale of New Zealand Chardonnay and Sparkling, with a 9am sparkling wine tasting. They then had lunch on the riverbank in the city centre, chardonnay tastings, and a farewell dinner at Midway Beach.
If the New Zealand wine industry were a person, the word that would drive her friends to distraction with its repetition would undoubtedly be ‘pure’. So frequent is its use – whether in tasting notes or in marketing material – it has the feel of an infectious verbal tick. Rather like the ‘look, mate’ that routinely introduces the post-game comments of every Australian sportsman, rare is the chat with the Kiwi winemaker that doesn’t feature a reference to the purity of the wine or terroir.
Casella, the makers of Yellow Tail and Peter Lehmann wines, is branching into beer for the first time, launching an Australian lager in its domestic market and a Yellow Tail lager in the US. Unveiled last week, its new beer for the Australian market is named Arvo and will see Casella attempt to steal some of the country’s beer market share from Lion and Fosters.
It’s a Friday afternoon. You’ve finished work and taken a seat at the new wine bar everyone’s talking about. You’re not sure what to drink and the sharp young waiter talks of a Sauvignon Blanc from the Loire Valley. You dive in. But it’s not what you expected: a luscious, dry Sancerre style came to mind, and what is poured is a cloudy, pale drink.
Treasury Wine Estates, the maker of Penfolds, Wolf Blass and Rosemount, is worth almost three times as much as when it was split off from Foster’s Group in mid-2011 and started life as a stand-alone company without the waft of beer smells coming over the wall from Foster’s core Victoria Bitter, Carlton Draught and Crown Lager brands.
Australian wines are the flavour of the year in the world’s two largest populations: with China bestowing the highest honours on our reds and India looking to learn more. Last year, Wine Australia figures showed Australian wine exports to China increased 66 percent, worth $370 million. The love affair continues this year with more Aussie wines being awarded in the China Wine and Spirits Best Value Awards this week than any other country.
On Saturday night Giovanni Paradiso, co-owner of Sydney institutions Fratelli Paradiso and 10 William Street posted a photo on Instagram. It was an image of 10 William Street’s chalkboard wine list, with the caption, “So according to NSW POLICE FORCE our blackboard with what we are pouring by the glass is promoting unsavoury behaviour. SYDNEY WHAT THE F**K IS HAPPENING.”
Registrations for the 16th Australian Wine Industry Technical Conference are now open! Returning to Adelaide in July 2016, this year’s AWITC incorporates the WFA Outlook Conference and the McWilliam’s Maurice O’Shea Award Dinner for the first time. Don’t miss the up-to-date business and technical content, practical workshops, and posters that present the latest scientific advances.
IMAGINE ORDERING a glass of wine at a bar and having it served at the perfect temperature and tasting consistently the same, time after time. Four years ago, the wine-on-tap category was just emerging. Thanks to enthusiasm from wineries and growing interest from restaurants, more than 3,900 locations in 49 states now offer it, nearly double the number of locations of two years ago.