Wine Briefs

LINDEMAN?S HAS marked the 100th birthday of its iconic Hunter Valley Ben Ean cellar door...

TWO OF Tasmania?s most talented winemakers are now jointly in charge of the Delamere Vineyards...

IT IS A sign of changing times in the wine industry when Jacob?s Creek chief winemaker Bernard Hickin...

THERE IS a new destination for wine lovers in the Yarra Valley with family-run winery Soumah...

NEW SOUTH Wales winemakers have launched a campaign urging NSW consumers to demand local wines.

THE OSBORN family is not inclined to do things by halves.

THREE LEADING makers of verdelho have joined together to promote the grape variety...

TASTINGS AT the Top at Cradle Mountain Lodge, Tasmania, is always one of the highlights of the food and wine year...

?THIS is the style of wine I personally want to do, not high in alcohol, with freshness and fruit,? says Alain Graillot...

YABBY Lake, one of the first Australian wineries to open a cellar door outlet in China in 2008...

A TOP selling Australian wine guide has gone Chinese.

THE Court of Master Sommeliers continues to gain ground in Australia...

ST. LEONARDS, the quiet vinous one in the Brown family?s north-east Victorian wine portfolio is breaking out.

PEMBERTON winemaker Di Miller has introduced a riesling scale...

THE 2012 vintage looks to be a big one for the Cooper family...

COBAW RIDGE, a small, family-owned Macedon Ranges producer...

FOLLOWING last year?s departure of winemaker Sam Plunkett and the Plunkett family...

THE face of Australian sparkling wine changed forever when Moet & Chandon decided to invest in Australia...

ADELAIDE Hills winemaker Geoff Hardy recently completed the acquisition...

CRAIGIE Knowe, one of Tasmania?s most historic vineyard properties, has been relaunched as a luxury boutique lodge.

NEW Nepenthe winemaker Alex Trescowthick has winemaking in his blood...

THERE will probably never be a better time for Australians to visit Europe...

WELL known Strathbogie Ranges winemaker Sam Plunkett has left Plunkett Fowles...

ANGOVE Family Winemakers, a 125-year-old wine company based in Renmark in the Riverland...

A FRESH, young group of Australian wine industry professionals has been inducted into the 2012 Future Leaders Program.

SIX Hunter Valley winemakers - New Generation Hunter Valley...

WINEMAKER Gilles Lapalus at Sutton Grange in Central Victoria has been on tenterhooks for months...

THIS year McLaren Vale?s d?Arenberg turns 100.

IT?S A MAJOR change of scenery for Victorian winemaker Dan Buckle with his move from Mount Langi Ghiran,

MELBOURNE'S Food and Wine Festival - March 2-21 - turns 20 this year.

ONE OF the most isolated wine regions in Australia, the Great Southern...

THE INAUGURAL $10,000 Don Martin Sustainable Viticulture Award has been won...

A NEW book on the people and the wines of the Heathcote wine region started as a series of wine stories ...

?I CAME from the school of hard knocks in Margaret River until the day I was adopted by Vasse Felix.

THE BIGGEST challenge to the future of Australian wine sales in China remains the French.

?I HAVE always questioned how Australia would reinvent itself,? says Yarra Valley winemaker Mac Forbes.

AARON Brasher, formerly with Petaluma and Fine Wine Partners...

WA?s Great Southern pioneer, Betty Quick, is the 2011 winner of the prestigious WA Wine Press Club?s Jack Mann Memorial Medal...

FORMER pastry chef Mary McNeil has launched Gourmania, a tour company aimed at introducing Hobart?s food and wine secrets to a wider audience.

MIKE Aylward, of Ocean Eight winery on Victoria?s Mornington Peninsula...

FANS OF talented chef Jason Smith, formerly of Strathlynn at the Ninth Island cellar door...

RHONDA Sear is the new executive officer of Taste Orange...

WINEMAKER Stefano Lubiana undertook a three-week study trip to Europe...

IT?S THE most exclusive wine to be made by a Mudgee producer ? and is in very short supply

THE 2011 vintage looks like being one of the best in years for Australian riesling.

THE WINEMAKERS? Federation of Australia has hit back at recent media reports suggesting red wine has no ?special, protective? health benefits.

THE SOUTH Australian wine industry is mourning the loss of Dina Grilli of Primo Estate...

THE REVIVAL of Seppeltsfield, the historic winery of the Barossa Valley dating back to 1851...

AS CLIMATE change threatens to alter the winegrowing landscape for Australian wines...

FOR 35 years St. Hugo has been just one wine, a cabernet sauvignon from Coonawarra.

WOULD you buy a wine labelled The Noble Botryotinia Fuckeliana? ...

CENTRAL Victorian icon winery Mitchelton has been sold by Lion Nathan to the Nagambie Wine Corporation...

CLARE Valley winery Kilikanoon has announced the appointment of Warrick Duthy...

VISITORS to the Barossa Valley are being offered a limited-time special package at the luxury The Louise resort...

TALTARNI winemaker Loic le Calvez has taken to the internet to promote his new-release 2005 Reserve Shiraz Cabernet 2005...

STEPHEN and Prue Henschke from Henschke Wines have been inducted into the Family Business Australia Hall of Fame...

LONG-TIME Hunter winemaker Neil McGuigan reckons he has produced a totally new style of semillon...

THE LIST of savings to the environment was truly impressive when Temple Bruer recently announced that it was the first Australian wine company to be both carbon-neutral and 100 per cent organic...

THE NEW owner of Poole?s Rock, one of the Hunter Valley?s premium wine producers, has vowed to keep the same wine philosophy and ?vision?...

AUSTRIAN winemakers are making a serious marketing play for the hearts and tastebuds of Australian drinkers...

ELDERTON is one of those Barossa wineries you imagine has a long, long history. Its vineyards certainly do, being planted in 1894, but the connection to the Ashmead family, who resurrected the old vines and created Elderton Wines isn't...

FROGMORE Creek has been one of the Tasmanian wine industry's major success stories over the past decade. Jointly owned by Tasmanian-based Tony Scherer and Californian Jack Kildwiler, Frogmore Creek has enjoyed rapid expansion and is prominent on top restaurant wine lists around the country...

LEADING Mornington Peninsula winery Stonier is taking its hugely successful Stonier International Pinot Noir Tasting overseas...

JACOB Stein is the youngest winemaker in the Mudgee region at 26...

THE MELBOURNE Food and Wines Festival celebrates its 18th year in 2011...

THE TASTE of the Huon, an annual festival in southern Tasmania...

BAROSSA Valley winery Torbreck has released what it claims is the most expensive current-release Australian table wine: its 2005 The Laird shiraz that sells for $700 a bottle and $1475 a magnum.

STEVE Webber and his wife, Leanne de Bortoli, from De Bortoli Yarra Valley are constantly coming up with new ideas.

ROLLO Crittenden, a second-generation winemaker from Mornington Peninsula winery Crittenden Estate, is the 2010 Young Gun Australian Winemaker of the Year.

NAGAMBIE winery Mitchelton has announced the appointment of Travis Clydesdale as its new winemaker...

WOLF Blass marked his 75th birthday with the 10th anniversary release of the award-winning Platinum Label Shiraz and the luxury range that still bear his name...

WINNERS in this year?s Vin de Champagne Awards include a medical professor and a professional sommelier from Tetsuya?s restaurant, Sydney.

AN EXPAT Aussie making his mark in Japan with one of Asia?s largest restaurant groups has become one of two Australians installed as masters of wine for 2010:

IT?S ONE of the great wine questions of our time. Is it a wine?s natural environment or the winemaker who most determines and shapes its quality?

WHILE Victorian winemakers were more than happy to see this year?s plentiful early-spring rains, for some the rains just kept on coming and coming, causing havoc.

AUSTRALIAN fortifieds have received a much-needed shot in the arm with the creation of the Australian Fortified Wine Show.

DO THREE wines constitute a new wine movement?

SUE Bell has one of the most astute palates in the Australian wine industry.

STEVE Wiblin spent 17 years as a wine marketer with major companies and 13 years as co-owner and winemaker at Neagles Rock in the Clare Valley.

VETERAN Rutherglen winemaker George Sutherland Smith has retired after 55 years in the industry.

DUTCHMAN Frank Huisman has travelled halfway around the globe to chase his dream of making fine cool-climate wines in Tasmania.

CAPITAL Wines, one of the huge success stories of the Canberra region, is getting a new cellar door...

THE BAROSSA Valley has a new wine and food destination: the Sorby Adams Wine Room & Pantry at 51 Murray St, Angaston...

THE MORNINGTON Peninsula Vignerons Association will host the peninsula?s International Pinot Noir Celebration from January 28-30, 2011...

AFTER working for a Swedish wine importer, former Serafino chief winemaker Scott Rawlinson has returned from stints in Italy ...

IN A world first, Australian makers of pinot gris and pinot grigio wines will be able to use ?fingerprinting? technology to objectively define and separate the two styles.

IF YOU accept that the wines we drink are largely the creation of the environment in which they are grown, then a new wine map...

TASMANIA, poised to host the 2012 International Cool Climate Seminar, has some interesting winemaking techniques to show attendees...

THE AUSSIE fightback to reclaim the tastebuds of wine drinkers addicted to the smell of cut grass and the taste of passionfruit has stalled.

BROWN Brothers has acquired Tasmania?s biggest wine producer, Tamar Ridge Estates.

COLLECTORS are used to mice nibbling on labels - but rats attacking screw caps?

TEMPRANILLO, the classic Spanish red grape, is taking hold in Australian soil with 386 hectares planted.

Summary of Winestate Wine of the Year Awards below. A full 56 page detailed feature on the award winning wines is available in our Special Edition Mid December 2009...

After last year's successful Trade Tasting Vins de Bourgogne, attended by a total of 300 wine industry professionals in Melbourne and Sydney, 20 wineries and negotiants from Burgundy will be back in Australia, from...

Go in the draw for one of five books simply by becoming a online member. Its FREE

NEW ZEALAND winemakers are grabbing a rising share of their domestic market, the latest figures reveal.

A CELEBRATION to be held on Wellington's waterfront early next year, Pinot Noir New Zealand 2010 has attracted over 100 wineries.

THE GROWING importance of wine to the economy is traced in a new report, Economic impact of the New Zealand wine industry.

APPROACHING his 25th vintage in Marlborough, Kevin Judd, Cloudy Bay's founding winemaker, announced last December he was passing the baton

FAMILY-OWNED McLaren Vale winery d'Arenberg has appointed TV presenter and wine writer Nick James-Martin as a winemaker and brand ambassador.

LEEUWIN Estate owner Denis Horgan rubbed shoulders with some of the biggest names in international food and wine

WINESTATE'S 2008 winemaker of the year, Mark Lane, has been lured from Western Australia

BURGUNDIAN winemaker Pierre Naigeon, who has been making flying visits to Australia to make wines under the Clos Pierre label for Dan Murphy's, plans to spend up to six months of each year in Australia from 2010.

LOOK for the International Wine Fair to become an annual event after big crowds flocked to the inaugural Vintage Cellars event in Sydney in March.

THE SAVOUR Tasmania wine and food festival will return in 2010 with a bigger format after this year's event proved a huge success.

FORMER Stonehaven winemaker Sue Bell has struck out on her own and is set to release wines under the Bellwether label.

BELLS at Killcare, leading Sydney chef Stefano Manfredi's new venture on the Central Coast of New South Wales, has unveiled a series of gourmet dinners

THE LOUISE, the upmarket Small Luxury Hotels member in the Barossa Valley, has launched exclusive private wine and winery experiences for guests.

THE ORANGE region of Central Western New South Wales probably has more wine and food festivals than any district of a comparable size

WINE lovers can buy their favourite drink in bottles, casks, plastic bottles and cans - and now in pouches.

IT LOOKS like a seven-foot Easter egg and it might just be the next big thing in winemaking.

VINTAGE 2009 in Victoria ended pretty much the way it started - anxiously.

IT'S ALL happening at Foster's as the big Australian starts acting on the recommendations contained in its February review.

YARRA Yering, the Yarra Valley vineyard owned by the late Dr Bailey Carrodus, is up for sale.

A VINTAGE in Burgundy last year has inspired a Hunter Valley winemaker to duplicate the experience back home.

SOME riesling makers are now planting vineyards in Norway and Sweden to combat the effects of climate change

THE COUNTRY Fire Authority will benefit from an exclusive en primeur wine package being offered through the Langton's auction house.

AT A TIME when many Australian winemakers are considering leaving the industry comes a new book dedicated to life on the land.

The much anticipated event on the regional winter calendar ? The NAB Barossa Gourmet Weekend - kicks off again on 22 and 23 August in the heart of Australia?s premier wine region. With the NAB getting behind the event, winery participants are gearing up for another successful weekend.

Visit us and try our range of wines including the award winning Sangiovese Cabernet or Chardonnay Viognier, available at Cellar Door for a short time only. Why not take home a Double Indulgence, the All Saints Rutherglen Muscat and Tokay gift pack?the perfect memento of your 2009 Winery Walkabout experience!

Shottesbrooke was an early pioneer of this variety planting Merlot in the early 1980?s for production as a 100% varietal wine. A combination of the generous climate and the deep sandy loam which require minimal to no irrigation produces fruit of a very high quality and excellent balance.

The completion of the 2009 harvest in Marlborough marks the genesis of Kevin Judd?s new wine label, Greywacke ? and brings to a close his 25 vintage role as chief winemaker at Cloudy Bay Vineyards, a career inextricably linked to the international reputation of New Zealand Sauvignon Blanc.

Geelong wine growers are celebrating!?Despite record low yields, vintage 2009 is being heralded as delivering a true silver lining - producing some of the best fruit quality this region has ever seen.

The commencement of the 2009 season of Sydney Dance Company under the artistic direction of Rafael Bonachela coincides with another first ? the announcement of Firestick wines as the Company?s exclusive national wine partner.

This is the fourth release of this wine which was brought into the fold to provide a gateway to quality Cabernet Merlot from Margaret River.

WITH his 25th vintage with the winery approaching, Cloudy Bay's founding winemaker, Kevin Judd, has resigned to build up his own label.

THE ALL SAINTS winery in North-East Victoria recently released its first rare Museum Muscat.

HEEMSKERK winemaker Anna Pooley and James Spreadbury, restaurant manager of the Kitchen Door shared honours...

THE INTERNATIONAL financial downturn will sort out the producers of ?trophy wines' as drinkers become more discriminating

AN AUSTRALIAN medico-cum-winemaker is claiming a world first with his resveratrol-enhanced wines

IN THE lead-up to the 2009 vintage, three new phylloxera outbreaks have been detected in the Yarra Valley.

THE WINE industry's New Year started ominously...

SALES of sparkling rose, across all price points, continue to soar...

THE MODERN cellar door is changing.

WHEN it comes to most wine purchases it isn?t taste that holds sway with consumers.

BOLLINGER releases French-designed collector?s item to coincide with the latest James Bond movie, Quantum of Solace.

YOU KNOW when pinot grigio is really hot? When it goes sparkling.

AUSTRALIAN wine labels are under attack on all fronts.

AN AUSTRALIAN invention that replicates a wine barrel and saves winemakers money is set to revolutionise winemaking.

At almost the very end of the Hawke?s Bay vintage, winemakers are looking more relaxed than they did a couple of months ago.?Following an annual vintage survey conducted by Hawke?s Bay Winegrowers Inc. of its members, the 2009 vintage is looking brilliant for Hawke?s Bay?s red wines.

Winemakers applaud Government?s restraint on tax The Winemakers? Federation of Australia says the Federal Government has shown common sense by resisting the temptation to increase taxes on wine in the Budget.

Well regarded surgeon and vigneron Robert Lusby, on ?Holy orders?, has created a truly special wine to commemorate the 100th Anniversary of one of Australia?s leading private hospitals.

Terrace Restaurant has once again joined forces with one of Australia?s finest wine producers to bring wine and food connoisseurs a truly special dinner.

The dates for the Barossa Gourmet Weekend have been confirmed for the weekend of Saturday 22nd and Sunday 23rd August 2009.

With its own mature, estate-owned and managed vineyards in Margaret River, Pemberton, Mount Barker & Geographe, Capel Vale is in an enviable position to make an informed decision on the best regional styles for each grape variety.

The sense of place attached to Longview Vineyard is strong ? and wine lovers who have made the 40-minute drive south east of Adelaide to Macclesfield are left with indelible memories. Towering gum trees among perfectly manicured vines. Gently undulating hills.

Orange?s Angullong Vineyard has recently joined with Ronald McDonald House (RMH) as the wine sponsor for the upcoming Ronald McDonald House ?Snowflake Ball?.

Australian sommeliers will have another opportunity in September 2009 to test their skills in the exciting program run by the world?s premier examining body for beverage professionals, the Court of Master Sommeliers, when the group return for the second year.

Beelgara, a producer of high quality Australian wines has announced its partnership with Shanghai Tohzen Trading Co., Ltd. (Tohzen).

The growing economic impact of the New Zealand wine industry has been highlighted in a report prepared by the New Zealand Institute for Economic Research (NZIER) for New Zealand Winegrowers, the national organisation for New Zealand?s 1,200 grape growers and 600 winemakers.

InWine Distribution proudly welcomes Adelaide Hills winery Tomich Wines to the national portfolio.

An online calculator specifically designed to help Australian wineries measure their carbon footprint was launched in Adelaide today.

Bard's Drop? is proud to announce the first release of wines under our newly created Shakespearean-themed Merry Wives? label. The home of Bard's Drop? is our vineyard on Broke Road in the Hunter Valley, adjacent to the Lakes Folly vineyard. While our inaugural vintage of old-vine Hunter Valley Shiraz from the 2009 vintage awaits release we have created a Shiraz and Chardonnay under the Merry Wives? label.

TINA ARENA joins CHRIS ISAAK AT BAROSSA UNDER THE STARS 2009

ONE of the major producers of Amarone - Italy's most opulent red wines - says she doesn't have a problem with Australian producers using the name.

THE DAYLESFORD wine area has traditionally been associated with the bigger, more important Macedon Ranges region.

THE AUSTRALIAN wine industry takes the growing export market to China so seriously it has appointed, for the first time, a full-time market development officer to promote its wines.

EVERY riesling maker in the land, it seems, is experimenting with a sweeter-style riesling these days.

WINEMAKERS in Victoria's North East are preparing for a long, hot future, with predictions of average annual temperatures rising by 9C by 2030.

HE WAS a member of the most powerful - and controversial - duo to ever sell wine in Australia but, after 23 years, Tony Leon is calling it quits.

THE WINE cask - a friend of the Australian drinker for the past 40 years - is officially in decline. Once it represented nearly 70 per cent of all wine sales in this country but today the figure is just 45.4 per cent and falling.

THE INCOMING chairman of the Melbourne Wine Show, Steve Webber, has proposed a new 'Mediterranean' class of wines for the show.

THE THIRD International Shiraz Alliance comes to the Barossa Valley from June 20 to 22 for a three-day talk and taste fest focusing on the shiraz - or 'syrah' - wines of the world.