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been withdrawn.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.
Philosopher, writer and composer Roger Scruton has heavily criticised screwcapped wines, claiming they reduce wine to an alcopop'.
Read more...Islay distillery Bruichladdich is to launch an 84.5% abv whisky - the first triple-distilled Islay malt for more than 300 years.
Read more...IVINI Ltd, the specialist importer and wholesaler of wine to the UK on-trade and independent retailers, has added the Highbank 2001 Coonawarra Red to its premium-wine portfolio.
Read more...Sopexa UK's managing director Franois Collache has left the promotions group after nine years in the role.
Read more...The new owner of Unwins, DM Private Equity, has sent a morale-boosting letter to all staff, in a bid to improve the multiple specialist's fortunes.
Read more...A total of 11 wines have been awarded the coveted five-star rating in the 2006 John Platter South African Wine Guide.
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