Exports of New Zealand wines have surpassed domestic sales for the first time in the industry's history, according to the 2005 Annual Report from New Zealand Wine Growers, with wine destined for foreign markets now accounting for 53% of production.
The 2005 Napa Valley Vintners tour rolls into London next week. Stuart Peskett profiles the headline acts
Read more...Brian Croser, one of Australia's most prominent and outspoken wine-industry figures, has finally severed his ties with Petaluma, the winery he set up three decades ago in the Adelaide Hills
Read more...Sam Tolley, chief executive of industry body the Australian Wine and Brandy Corporation (AWBC), said last week during a speech in Melbourne that there is no doubt that the wine sector is facing its toughest challenges in over a decade'.
So what to make of the whole Allied Domecq-Pernod-Fortune Brands mnage trois? Reminds me of playing Monopoly when I was 10. No strategy at all - just furiously buying all the property in sight until the money was gone or you had driven all the other players into bankruptcy.
On your appointment as president and CEO of Mot & Chandon in January 2004, Christophe Navarre, chairman and CEO of Mot Hennessy, described your mission as to strengthen Mot & Chandon's leadership and to continue both its growth and that of Dom Prignon. How are you doing?
Read more...The Portuguese Cork Association (APCOR) has unveiled plans to set up a government-run cork-processing park with a state-of-the-art pay-as-you-go' communal cork-boiling unit. According to APCOR president Antnio Rios de Amorim, who is also chairman of the world's largest cork producer, Amorim & Irmos, the idea is to give small producers shared access to the latest technology for reducing TCA to avoid the financial burden of investing in expensive new equipment.
Read more...White wine and seafood have long been comfortable partners, but a new initiative from Tohu Wines will see the relationship brought even closer.
Read more...The new head of New Zealand Winegrowers (NZWG) believes that New Zealand can be the premium New World wine region for the UK'.
Read more...To do this we need your help. Harpers is offering two free subscriptions, worth 145 each, to UK readers, selected at random, who answer the following questionnaire. Pull out these centre pages, fill in the blanks and return them to:
Trade Questionnaire, Harpers, Media House,
Azalea Drive, Swanley, Kent BR8 8HU.
If you wish to be entered into the prize draw, please print out these pages and fill in your name and details in the space provided at the bottom of the page. To guarantee your confidentiality, the name will be removed and placed into the draw by a member of staff not connected to the wine trade BEFORE the questionnaire is passed on to the Harpers editorial team.
Deadline: 1 September 2005
The winemaker at top Coonawarra estate Balnaves, Pete Bissel, has won the Qantas/Gourmet Traveller WINE Winemaker of the Year Award.
Read more...Villa Maria has announced that Charlotte Read is to be its new European wine manager.
Read more...Many studies have revealed that takeovers destroy value for the shareholders of the purchasing company. The mooted savings through rationalisation and size rarely deliver the benefits promised by the acquiring directors and their highly rewarded City advisers.
The Port trade is suffering at both ends of the river Douro.
Read more...Tim Johnston was educated
at a very second-rate public school, from which I escaped aged 17'. He worked for Findlaters for a few months, before eight months in slavery' at Chteau Cantenac-Brown.
He apprenticed with Hedges & Butler, and in 1969 he moved to France, where he has been involved with several wine bars, including Willi's and Juveniles with Mark Williamson, The Blue Fox with Steven Spurrier, and Tournon in Bordeaux with Alex Herbage. He has written for Wine International, Wine Spectator and Saveur. He has vinified in France (Bordeaux, Hermitage and Provence), America (Chateau Montelena, Jordan Winery and Bill Wheeler's winery on Dry Creek Road) and Australia (Cullen). Juveniles sells wine for off- as well as on-premise consumption, and Johnston is available to source French wines.
Connect Wine, the new business venture set up by former International Wine Services commercial director Paul Dunn, has signed up the Chilean winery Via Valdivieso as a client.
Read more...Wines of Chile
Annual Trade Tasting
Lord's Cricket Ground
London NW8
Tuesday 13 September
10.30am-5pm
Majestic wine has secured a stunning' 36,000-bottle parcel of red and white Burgundies from the 1997 to 2000 vintages.
Liberty Wines has taken over the distribution of famed Clare Valley producer Jeffrey Grosset.
Read more...Do you know how glass is made? Sorry? Yes, it's got sand in it. Anything else? No? A straw poll among the Harpers team certainly showed up our manufacturing ignorance, but many people seem to take for granted the vessel that protects and contains the precious liquid that we spend most of our time writing about. If you'd like a full breakdown of what goes into glass, rather than what goes inside it, then see below. In a nutshell, it's a mixture of sand, limestone and soda ash.
Read more...
