What’s the trick of making great Pinot Noir? Letting Mother Nature call the shots. “The trick, in my humble opinion — and I learned this working in Burgundy — is not to force the wines to be something they don’t naturally want to be,” said Theresa Heredia, winemaker of Freestone winery. Heredia is the winemaker behind our wine-of-the-week winner, the Fogdog, 2009 Sonoma Coast Pinot Noir at $35, reports Press Democrat.
Walter Clappis has been to China more than a dozen times, promoting his wines and forging relationships with local distributors. It is that sort of dedication which was yesterday rewarded, with his Hedonist Wines winning Wine Australia’s George Mackey Memorial Trophy for its 2009 The Hedonist Shiraz. The wine, which was made by Mr Clappis, his youngest daughter Kimberly and James Cooter, was selected from more than 14,500 competitors for the trophy, reports Adelaide Now.
Large quantities of wine were lost when a raging fire ripped through a shed at Ballandean Estate Wines, at Ballandean, south of Stanthorpe, early Friday morning. A spokeswoman for the Queensland Fire and Rescue Service said crews were called to the winery on Sundown Rd about 3.40am. The arrived to find the 30m by 40m shed, which was filled with wine bottles and machinery, ablaze. Business manager Robyn Puglisi-Henderson said the fire had destroyed five years worth of stock, reports The Courier Mail.
There are a number of reasons why the NSW South Coast isn’t a renowned wine region, but one local vigneron is painstakingly and effectively dispelling all of them. Growing wine grapes on the South Coast of NSW is a job so consistently difficult, the fact Ben Willis and his family have done it so well is a feat of agricultural brilliance, reports ABC News.
It’ll hardly rip anyone’s knickers to know that wine is a great partner for all sorts of practices. Take the pairing of wine with cheese; the French have been doing that for centuries. We Kiwis have been doing it ever since someone impaled a cube of cheddar with a toothpick and stabbed it into an upside-down orange. Wine and food pairing is so common that wine competitions now award extra medals to wines whose flavours favour a multitude of meals, reports The Wairarapa Times Age.
A team of Dutch scientists has found that resveratrol, the polyphenolic compound that has attracted a great deal of interest in the scientific community in recent years, can improve the metabolism of overweight men, improving their health and possibly extending their lives. The latest study, published in Cell Metabolism, finds that the red-wine chemical does appear to help increase the lifespan of humans, specifically by counteracting some of the effects of a poor diet, reports Wine Spectator.
Devastated by bushfires last week, Margaret River was today named Australia’s Best Town’ by Australian Traveller magazine. The iconic South West wine and surf mecca won Best Town for its revered wineries, restaurants and farm gates, not to mention its rural charm and world famous surf breaks. The award for the fire-ravaged town is quite timely, as only yesterday tourism chiefs in the region were desperate to downplay the effects of the fire after a string of last-minute cancellations from tourists visiting the region, reports Perth Now.
Five privately owned Kiwi wineries hope to make $10 million in sales through a fast-growing export joint venture to the United States. Called Pacific Prime Wines, the group set up its own US importing business in Oregon in February and now distributes into 14 states, from New York to California. It has made exports of more than $500,000 so far and plans to grow those sales to $10m within five years, reports Business Day.
A floral bouquet of rose and jasmine with high notes of citrus and ginger, finishing with notes of musk and exotic spice” – this enticing description is of a perfume, but could equally be applied to a wine made from one of the so-called aromatic varieties, which have been taking off in our vineyards in recent years. As their name suggests, aromatic varieties make wines that are more fragrant than most, with their naturally potent aromas something they possess inherently, rather than being a product of any winemaking input, reports The New Zealand Herald.
Sounds like the bureaucrats have been at the bottle again. And this time they’re meddling with something we Aussies hold dear to our hearts – plonk. Due to a change to the Wine Australia Corporation Act of 1980, Sherry will henceforth be known as “Cream, crusted/crusting or solera fortified”, reports Weekly Times Now.