Viticulturist Michael Wilson says that he never gets sick of eating his own winegrapes. The skins are thick and the grapes are full of pips, but Mr Wilson said you can’t beat the tropical fruit flavour of Sauvignon Blanc, the citrus tang of Riesling and the fresh fruit flavours of Pinot Noir. The flavours and their intensity also help Mr Wilson to zero-in on the perfect date to pick. He said it was those flavours that he wanted in a bottle, not the jammy excess sugar flavour from over-ripe Pinot Noir, nor the herbaceous green pip taint of under-ripe grapes, reports The Mercury.

It’s hard to imagine that Kinloch Wines in Victoria’s Boorolite Valley was developed as recently as 1996. Business brains Malcolm and Susan Kinloch successfully transformed their property from back block to boutique winery, complete with 4ha of vines, Mediterranean-style home and cellar door and cafe, after leaving their careers in commerce. When the couple arrived at the property, named Kainui, it had a basic home and hay shed and was running cattle, reports Weekly Times Now.

Grape prices have plummeted in some of the flood-affected wine producing regions of south-west NSW. Now that the water has receded, growers are back in their vineyards trying salvage what’s left of the vintage. Kristy Bartrop, from the Riverina Wine Grapes Marketing Board, says farmers are getting a fraction of what they would have been paid before the floods, reports ABC Rural.

At the start of this year, award-winning NSW winemaker Jason Brown was anticipating his best season yet, with outstanding crops of Chardonnay and Shiraz grapes. ”I was looking at the very best Shiraz I’ve ever produced,” he says. ”We just needed it to continue ripening to develop flavour.” And then came the rain and, with it, the washout of all his hopes for a record-breaking vintage. For while the Chardonnay was happily harvested before the sluicing rain drenched vast areas of southern NSW, including his Hilltops Moppity Vineyards at Young, the fragile Shiraz was still on the vine, waiting for some elusive sunshine to finish it off, reports the Sydney Morning Herald.

Those who believe everything they read will tell you, if they haven’t already, that Sauvignon Blanc, the wine that put us on the world wine map, is under threat. And it’s not from other, or better, examples of Sauvignon Blancs than ours. According to a series of recent reports, the distinctive herbaceous savvies on which our reputation is based could come under attack from at least three different directions and three different wines, writes Warren Barton in The Southland Times.

Central Otago’s grape supply is “balanced on a knife edge” as growers expect a high demand for this year’s harvest. Central Otago viticulturist and wine industry consultant Timbo Deaker said a fungal infestation in the Cromwell basin and Gibbston area because of rain had caused “bunch rot” and wiped out some of the grape supply. About 40mm of rain fell on March 11 and the lack of wind and overcast days afterwards caused grapes to contract botrytis and become unusable, Mr Deaker said. The good news from the rain was that demand for Central Otago Pinot Noir was “exceptionally” high, reports The Southland Times.

New Zealanders know the tiki as a hand-carved Maori treasure which, when gifted, bestows good fortune and love on others. What better brand name, then, for a wine crafted with the same spirit in mind? Appropriate too, that founders and owners Royce and Sue McKean, named their new wine venture Tiki to pay homage to the wisdom of Royce’s Maori ancestors. Royce’s great-great-grandfather, Tiki Tere Mihi, was a chieftain of Ngati Uenuku, who revered the land and its significance to his people, reports The New Zealand Herald.

While the Aussie producers have not been very good at predicting the grapes in fashion a couple of decades hence, a unique grape Savagnin, the look alike of the Spanish variety Albariño could be the next big thing in white winegrapes, writes our guest writer Dan Traucki, a wine consultant and writer from South Australia who shares his vision with Indian Wine Academy.

Costco cemented its name as the biggest wine retailer in the US by selling bottles of Dom Perignon for $US100 a pop in 2006. That little bit of marketing chutzpah reportedly moved more than 100,000 cases of Dom that year and helped propel what had been regarded as simply a “big box” discounter into the orbit of the serious wine drinker. It was like honey to a bee. Has Costco’s first venture into Australia provided the same alluring honey? It’s not $100 but relative to its competitors (the ’02 ranges from $199 to $332 in Melbourne) it’s a bargain, writes Jeni Port in The Age.

There are many not quite empty wine bottles hanging around my kitchen. They are remnants of recent tastings; a brilliant Clare Riesling here, a blockbusting Barossa Shiraz there, both mega trophy winners and priced accordingly. They now queue up beside the stove or barbecue, waiting for a marinade. The perennial advice is always: don’t cook with a wine you wouldn’t drink. This seems fair if you drink el cheapo de plonko, but what if you fancy a bottle over dinner for $30 or $50, asks News Limited’s national wine writer Tony Love.