Wine Atlas

If you are a lover of Pinot Noir and Sauvignon Blanc, you have probably had more than your fair share of New Zealand wines. In all honesty, if you are just a casual drinker, you may not have even realized where they were from, but were buying them more for cost conscious reasons than anything else. Then you open up this $15 bottle of wine and are absolutely blown away. How can New Zealand send great tasting wines to America and charge less money?

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I'm watching the sun rise over the Tuki vineyard as the harvest starts, all from the comfort of my own home. I'll not be putting in the hard graft with the pickers as I experience vintage activity vicariously via the webcam that's been monitoring proceedings at this Hawkes Bay vineyard.

Wine appears on the web in many guises, the most obvious being the recent explosion in bottles available to buy over the internet. From the virtual cellar doors of many wineries and the websites of a growing number of wine retailers, to 100 per cent online wine enterprises: wine is increasingly just a mouse click away.

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The world's fastest developing major economy is the new exporting target for a group of Marlborough wineries setting off to China next week.

New Zealand Wine global marketing manager Chris Yorke said the eight-day trip aimed to search for distributors and increase sales, as well as to push New Zealand wines as strong, premium wine brands.

Of the 23 wineries represented on the Shanghai trip 12 are from Marlborough: Omaka Springs, Forest Estate, Babich, Nobilo, Stoneleigh, Terrace Heights, Jackson Estate, Oyster Bay, Spy Valley, Tohu Wines, Villa Maria, and Staete Landt.

Seven of the Marlborough wineries also have company representatives making the journey.

Mr Yorke, who is leading the trip along with New Zealand Wine marketing executive Kate Garton, said it would be New Zealand Wine's first visit to China. He also said it would be the largest ever tasting of New Zealand wines in China, with 100 wines on the sampling menu.

The three-day trip involves a media conference, tastings and a restaurant dinner matching the New Zealand wines with Chinese cuisine.

Ruud Maasdam, owner and winemaker at Staete Landt Vineyards, said he was looking forward to the tour.

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The 2008 wine harvest is under way around New Zealand's winegrowing regions, with an anticipated yield of about 18 million cases of wine. But as the pickers moved into the vineyards in Gisborne, a deal was being signed in Auckland that will make that wine harder to sell, at least in New Zealand.

The takeover of Auckland-based wine distributor Burleigh Trading by Vintage Wines & Spirits is the latest development in the consolidation of the domestic wine market and, by reducing further the representation of small wine producers in metropolitan markets, one that could have significant long-term effects on the health of the wine business.

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30 January 2006 by Kevin McCallum, The Press Democrat Woodside wine analyst Jon Fredrikson said in a speech at the Unified Wine & Grape Symposium in Sacramento, 2005 was a stellar year for the U.S. wine market, reaching record volumes and sales as Baby Boomers and 20-somethings bought more - and more expensive - wine.

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Mourvèdre, an important Spanish grape that was once the dominant varietal in Provence, has become the murmur du jour as more varietals associated with the southern Rhône assume increasing popularity worldwide. A late ripener, it needs warm summers to yield its rich, gamey or meaty flavours, sometimes likened to truffles. Several leading producers at the Cape have established plantings but these are still too small to warrant a mention in the statistics provided by SA Wine Industry Information & Systems (SAWIS).

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Winemakers from the Olifants River Valley came to Cape Town during WineX in a balancing act of all dimensions great and small, and to show the versatility of the terroir of the far-flung wine region - from Koekenaap in the north to Trawal in the south, from warm Karoo vineyards to cool sandy Strandfontein on the coast.

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Why try to develop fruit characteristics in wine when you can make wine of the real thing, asks organic fruit winemaker Malcolm Hadlum.

"You hear wine experts say they love the raspberry taste of a pinot or the plum flavour in a cabernet," he says. "That may be so, but have they ever considered trying wine made of the real fruit."

Hadlum, who makes wine from plums, apples, feijoas and ginger, as well as cider from apples and mead from honey, at his winery beside Lake Horowhenua, has a thought- provoking view of winemaking.

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New Zealand wines have scooped 15 gold medals in the prestigious International Wine Challenge.

The awards are run by the Wine International magazine and involve more than 9000 wines from around the world.

Spokesperson for New Zealand Winegrowers Chris Yorke said local wines won twice as many awards this year than last with eight of the golds going to red wines.

Yorke said two New Zealand wines also received trophies, the Sileni Estates Cellar Selection for the best sauvignon blanc and the St Clair Doctors Creek for best pinot noir.

New Zealand was the only still wine producing country to increase its gold medal count at this years event, Yorke said.

Laws that will mean Australian taxpayers will pay New Zealand wine producers a small subsidy have been introduced into parliament.

Assistant Treasurer Mal Brough introduced a series of tax law amendments, covering the child care rebate, deductible gift recipients and a schedule that will help the Australian Bureau of Statistics access more information from the tax office.

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