A total of eight complaints were made about drinks packaging in the UK in 2006, according to responsible drinking organisation The Portman Group, with gift packs like the one pictured right making up the majority.
The Wine and Spirit Trades' Benevolent Society has changed its name and updated its image to attract more members and increase fundraising efforts.
The timetable for judging entries in the International Wine & Spirit Competition (IWSC) is to be changed after a number of requests from New World producers.
Plans to increase all licence fees by 7% for the next three years have been slammed by the Wine & Spirit Trade Assocation (WSTA). The increase, as recommended by the Licensing Fees Review Panel, would be introduced in the period 2007/8 and would then be reviewed in 2009/10.
New Zealand may have a new adventure tourism experience to rival bungee jumping and white-water rafting if one enterprising winemaker has his way.
Lisa McGuigan will step down from her role as global marketing director for McGuigan Simeon Wines next Friday (9 February) to concentrate on managing the growth of the Tempus Two brand.
London's restaurants took every prize at the Tatler/Champagne Louis Roederer restaurant awards last week, with The Wolseley named restaurant of the year.
France's Pernod Ricard has increased its full-year sales target after exceeding both its own and analysts' forecasts in the half-year to the end of December, in which its organic sales rose 9.7%, sending the shares to a record level in Paris.
Inventory is ignorance! Now there's a mantra from supply-chain seminary, if there were such a place. It's actually just an abridged truism from the field of logistics: warehouses full of products represent a hedge against uncertainty. You stockpile because you don't have - or can't have - a comprehensive understanding of your suppliers or your customers. Indeed, most companies accept that as given.
Gin is currently one of the most active and interesting of all the spirit categories. Worldwide it sells over 50 million cases - right up in the international spirits market, making it a major force. But if we listen to the pundits, we could easily be convinced that gin's days are numbered, with all the signs indicating declining sales worldwide. There is no disputing that, in the past five years, the category has experienced a 6% fall in terms of volume; at the same time, the great gin renaissance shows no signs of slowing down. How can both these contradictory trends be true?
A group of rum producers are planning to front a generic campaign in the UK - with every bottle bearing the stamp Authentic Caribbean Rum'.
Will Duke, director of on-trade sales at HBJ Wines, told his business clinic session that nothing in his presentation was rocket science', but whatever you do in business, it is about making customers happy.
Government proposals to introduce a new category within the AOC system have been rejected unequivocally by winemakers in Bordeaux.
The Vinos Sin Fronteras (wine without borders) project has sent two volunteers to more than 15 countries to collect donations in the form of bottles of wine in aid of charity.
A new marketing campaign and bottle design highlighting Beefeater gin's London roots has been launched by Chivas Brothers, at a cost believed to be in excess of 10 million.
For more than five decades, Bardolino, as a region, has been tagged as one of the poor relations of Italian winemaking, famous only for making low-quality but pleasant easy-drinkers that non-involved consumers might choose to glug with their pasta or pizza.
As Tibor Kovcs of Htszl once said: Tokaji is world famous, but only in Hungary.' There's little doubt it has all the right ingredients - long history and tradition (Tokaj claims to be the oldest delimited wine region in the world), unique winemaking, memorable scenery and terroir. And it also has several passionate and charismatic evangelists for its wines, as well as a number of high-profile foreign investors. But the reality is that the wine industry in Tokaj as we see it today is only 15 years old and, like most teenagers, it has yet to fully make its mark on the world.
The Government has published a consultation document on the guidance to the 2003 Licensing Act, which has been heavily criticised since its inception.
Winemakers in Rioja are now able to use a greater number of white grape varieties, thanks to a change in the rules by the Organizacin Interprofesional del Vino de Rioja (OIPVR - the Interprofessional Organisation of the Wines of Rioja).
The team behind the shopping website jungle.com is preparing to launch a new company which will sell wine via a satellite television channel.
