Responsible drinking campaigner The Portman Group is relaunching its non-drinking designated driver campaign, I'll be Des', to remind drivers of the dangers of drinking and driving in the run-up to the festive season.
The generic body for Bordeaux wines, the Conseil Interprofessionnel du Vin de Bordeaux (CIVB), has joined
the ranks of the Wine & Spirit Education Trust's (WSET) Corporate Patrons.
Perhaps the most unifying factor in the Italian wine scene at present is the fall in grape prices, which seems to be happening from north to south and east to west.
Read more...Consumer wine magazine Decanter is to launch a dedicated Far East edition next month - the first western wine magazine to do so.
Read more...Two men are under arrest and 13 people are under investigation by Italy's Guardia di Finanza (fiscal police), together with police of the fraud squad called out by Siena's district attorney in yet another alleged sofisticazione (wine adulteration) involving fake Tuscan classics.
Read more...Siegel Wine Agencies - best known for its range of premium German producers, such as Hermann Donnhoff - has been bought by New World specialist, Australian Wineries, for an undisclosed sum.
Read more...On the back of the departure of a large part of Constellation Europe's senior executive team - chief executive Christopher Carson, marketing senior vice president, Graham Oak, and chief operating officer Richard Peters (with further cuts to
the marketing department rumoured to be in the air) - Constellation supremo Richard Sands has blamed tougher' trading conditions in the UK for only a modest rise in profits.
There's a reason why Harpers' 2005 South Africa supplement is resplendent in flowers. It's nothing to do with the Chelsea Flower Show or the Royal Horticultural Society, it's all about biodiversity in the Cape.
The South African wine industry is pioneering a project to conserve the Cape Floral Kingdom and, in doing so, it gives Wines of South Africa (WOSA), the country's generic body, a great consumer marketing campaign giftwrapped on, as it were, a platter.
Police and drinks watchdogs need to take a new approach to their responsible-drinking campaigns, according to an author who has completed a 45,000-mile pub crawl to research his latest book.
Read more...A group of 18 young Bordelais - either chteau owners or their offspring - has set up a new association designed to breathe new life into Bordeaux's reputation abroad.
Read more...Ian Smith has been appointed as commercial director of Matthew Clark. This new role has been created to coordinate all sales, purchasing and marketing activities within Matthew Clark, following several years of rapid growth.
Read more...Producers in Bordeaux are talking up the 2005 vintage like no other since the turn of the Millennium. And despite a well-known predilection to calling all but the most disastrous of years excellent', it appears that this year it may well be just that.
Read more...France, Spain and Greece are the next up-and-coming wine-producing countries, according to the results of this year's AA Wine Award.
Read more...Emma Wellings PR has been unceremoniously dropped as the public-relations agency for Somerfield with only two weeks' notice, and Phipps PR has been appointed as a replacement.
Read more...The first vintages of Tokara wines - owned by South African merchant banker GT Ferreira - will be launched in the UK, with an on-trade focus, at Wines of South Africa's Mega Tasting on 11 & 12 October.
Read more...Despite receiving a record number of entries for its 2005 awards, the International Wine & Spirit Competition (IWSC) is looking to cast its net still wider, having launched a new campaign aimed at raising its profile across the global wine and spirits industry.
Read more...More than 1,300 cases of wine belonging to The Wine Society were stolen after a delivery driver was duped last week. 1,000 cases of the society's own-label 2004 Pinot Grigio and 360 cases of 2003 Chianti Leonardo, with a total retail value of 101,760, were stolen on 26 September.
Read more...Raymond Blanc is to change the wine list at his Le Manoir aux Quat' Saisons restaurant in Oxfordshire - but he will not be ditching New World wines, as has been reported elsewhere.
On the restaurant website, Blanc says: We are removing from our cellars any red wines that are overoaked, unbalanced or lack tannins. Those whites strongly flavoured with vanilla or that are too buttery will also go.'
Prices of blue-chip Bordeaux have risen by up to 20% in
the last three weeks, on the back of fevered buying from
UK merchants hoping to take advantage of changes to pensions rules effective next April - even though the full details of the new rules are yet to be announced. The changes to the law should mean that fine wine' can be included in Self Invested Personal Pensions (SIPPs) and would therefore be eligible for tax relief.
The Champagne harvest is just about complete, and the maximum permitted yield of 13,000 kilos per hectare (kg/ha) should be reached right across the appellation. This was the level set by the Comit Interprofessionnel du Vin de Champagne (CIVC) in early September, just before the harvest officially began on the 12th, with 1,500kg/ha of this, the equivalent of around 41 million bottles, being put into the qualitative reserve'.
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