London-based spirits company Blavod Extreme Spirits, most famous for its Blavod Black Vodka brand, is entering into a joint venture with Suntory International, the US subsidiary of Suntory, Asia's biggest beverage producer. The joint venture, to be called Diamante Spirits, will be a 50/50 partnership.
Read more...Weather conditions during the 2005 campaign in Italy have so far been generally positive, but even this year some of the growers in the Langhe are bewailing their fate after having been struck by hail on 20 August.
Read more...A collection of posters celebrating Champagne de Castellane is to go on sale at Christie's.
Read more...Douglas Green Bellingham (DGB) has confirmed the acquisition of the Boschendal Wine business, with the deal going last week (see Harpers, 22 July), and pledged to increase its sales of premium wines in the UK by turning the company into South Africa's answer to Penfolds.
Read more...The 2005 Jimmy Watson Trophy, arguably Australia's most important show award, has been awarded to the 2004 Geoff Merrill Reserve McLaren Vale Shiraz at this year's Melbourne Wine Show.
Read more...The California wine industry has been selected as an outstanding' example of a conservation partnership' by the US government, which invited the California Association of Winegrape Growers (CAWG) to showcase their work during a conference at the White House last week.
Read more...A leading Australian authority on screwcaps has urged European producers to embrace the closure but warned: Producers have to ensure they bottle correctly or it could do real damage to the image of screwcaps.'
Read more...Having taught the French a trick or two about marketing their own wine in the US, Gallo is set to launch its French wine brand, Red Bicyclette, in the UK.
Read more...Argentinian producer Marta's Vinyard is holding its own tasting at Lord's to coincide with the official Wines of Argentina generic tasting.
Read more...A vodka survey in Which? magazine has put New Zealand's 42 Below out in front.
Read more...Bollinger has rebranded the Ayala Champagne house it bought earlier this year - launching a new logo, a new wine and new packaging across the range.
Read more...Brandyclassics, Bradford on Avon, Wiltshire
Interview: Anastasia Edwards
Photography: Tristan Newkey-Burden
Wine consumption in the UK has risen by almost a quarter in the past five years, according to research group Mintel. This 23% uplift in consumption contrasts sharply with former wine-drinking stalwarts Italy, France and Germany, which have seen consumption drop 2%, 6% and 11% respectively.
Read more...Joseph Berkmann has angrily denied allegations that Georges Duboeuf topped up his best wines with inferior ones.
The chairman of Berkmann Wine Cellars, the sole UK agent for Duboeuf, issued a statement refuting the allegations, and claimed that national newspaper reports were based on inaccurate' stories in the French press, which had ubsequently
been withdrawn.
Bodegas Hidalgo-La Gitana, the Sherry house responsible for La Gitana Manzanilla, has joined the Mentzendorff portfolio in an exclusive arrangement.
Read more...Standing on the banks of the tranquil river Charente by Chteau Courvoisier in Jarnac, who would have thought that the fortunes of the Cognac category could have been turned around by a handful of American hip-hop artists? After years in the doldrums, along with the likes of whisky, adrift while the white spirits - vodka, white rum and tequila - continued their seemingly inexorable rise, Cognac finally received the sort of ringing endorsement that money just can't buy - not even with the big budgets of LVMH (Hennessy); Seagram, now Pernod Ricard (Martell); and Allied Domecq, now Fortune Brands (Courvoisier).
Read more...PLB Group, the own-label wine specialist, has bought wine company Lane & Tatham for an undisclosed sum.
East Sussex-based PLB - which has tried hard in recent years to increase its presence in the branded-wine sector - now moves into fine wines for the first time. Lane & Tatham will continue to run as a separate business, operating as the fine-wine subsidiary of the company.
The new managing director of Wines of Argentina (WoA) is Fernando Farr.
Farr has a marketing background, and worked with L'Oral for nearly eight years, both in Argentina and abroad. He replaces marketing manager Bernardo Hoffmann.
Hardys, the UK's number-one off-trade wine brand, is set to launch a new cinema advertising campaign later this month under the Best Wine Under The Sun' campaign positioning launched at the end of 2004.
Read more...Hallgarten has taken on the agency for one of Canada's leading Icewine producers, Pelee Island Winery in Ontario.
