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Australian producers aim to boost fortified wine sales
Australia's fortified wine producers are planning to re-ignite interest in the languishing category.
Their prime target will be 25-44 year-old drinkers who, they say, only spend about 5% of their alcoholic beverage budget on fortifieds.
Research conducted for the Winemakers Federation of Australia, has shown that this group enjoy wine but lack understanding about the sort of occasions fortifieds can be drunk and how they should be served.
Committee chairman, Colin Campbell, said that some of the results were encouraging.
'It indicated that fortifieds have the 'wow' factor once consumers experience the products for the first time,' he said.
The research had identified different roles for the principal fortifieds – Sherry, Port, Muscat and Tokay – and strategies were being developed to improve the understanding of them among restaurateurs and staff in retail shops. ...read more
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Australia's wine industry hit by series of problems
Australia's wine industry is reeling from a series of unwelcome developments.
These include a bigger than expected vintage, a surplus of 476m litres of wine, a large winery going into receivership - and Foster's slashing staff at its 80,000 tonne winery near Mildura.
Foster's announced on Tuesday that 50 of the 300 staff at the winery, Australia's fifth largest, will be gone by September because of still falling wine demand, particularly during the past six months.
The winery produces most of Foster's large-volume brands, mainly Lindeman's, and most of its sparkling wines.
Some of the job losses are additional to the global 300-job reduction announced by Foster's in February.
It also announced Australian and US asset sales of AUS$243m...read more
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ASEV President Proposes Wine Ethics
Napa, Calif.--On the first day of this year's Annual Meeting of the American Society for Enology and Viticulture (ASEV), at the end of a symposium on High Brix Winemaking, incoming president Christian Butzke introduced an unrelated but equally high-profile proposition: developing a code of ethics for the U.S. wine industry.
Butzke, an enology researcher and professor at Purdue University, offered his comments as the final, unscheduled segment of an all-day series of presentations on the ins and outs of the recent trend toward high sugar /high alcohol/high-end wines, with nearly 200 people in attendance. Delivered with Butzke's trademark flashes of zany humor, the proposal met with a thoughtful and generally positive response, stimulating constructive discussion on the spot.
Butzke began by noting that a number of other professions and industries have adopted voluntary codes of ethics and standards, and that they have proven useful both for enhancing the public image of the adoptees and for stimulating internal discussion and awareness. He contrasted the kind of independent, self-regulatory process he envisions with European Union-style government wine regulation--and with the possibility down the road of imposition of standards in the U.S. by the TTB, FDA, or other agencies not intimately involved in the realities of wine production....read more
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Ahead Of Constellation Brands' Q1 Report
(RTTNews) - Alcoholic beverage maker Constellation Brands, Inc. (STZ: News ) is due to release its first quarter scorecard before the market opens on July 1, with analysts forecasting earnings of $0.32 per share on revenues of $780.72 million. In the year-ago period, the company posted adjusted earnings of $0.34 per share on net sales of $931.8 million.
While consumers are trading down for less pricey products and curbing their consumption, especially at bars and restaurants, most alcohol companies are still profitable as they make up with new brands. Though the alcoholic beverages companies seem to be recession-resilient, they are not totally immune from the weak consumer environment.
Reporting to shareholders in its annual report, Constellation Brands' president and chief executive Rob Sands said the company has been facing stiff competitions in the U.K. and Australia in the recent fiscal periods, in particular, the duty increases in the U.K. which have been imposed annually for the past several years. Further, the continuing surplus of Australian wine has made and continues to make very low cost bulk wine available to the U.K. retailers, which has allowed certain of the large retailers to create and build private label brands in the Australian wine category.
While releasing fourth-quarter numbers, the world's largest wine company said it projects fiscal 2010 reported earnings to range between $0.97 and $1.07 per share, including about $106 million charges related to planned operational changes and inventory step-up costs...read more
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Winemaker Interview
Clark Smith has been called "Dr. Frankenwine," a provocateur, even the anti-Christ because of his work in applying high-tech solutions to winemaking. Smith is probably best known as the co-founder of Vinovation in Sonoma County, which has provided services such as alcohol adjustment and volatile-acidity removal to the wine industry. He sold the service end of the business last year to Winesecrets, but he continues to run Vinovation as a consultancy.
Smith also makes his own wines under the WineSmith, CheapSkate and PennyFarthing labels, based in Sonoma County. A Massachusetts Institute of Technology dropout, Smith graduated with a degree in enology from the University of California, Davis, in 1982 and is currently an instructor at Napa Valley College, Florida International University, Fresno State University and Missouri State University. He also directs the Best-of-Appellation Program at Appellation America.___
Wines & Vines : You've said that Vinovation has performed alcohol adjustment services for 800 wineries per year, so clearly a lot of producers are reducing the alcohol levels in their wines. Why do you think so few winemakers are willing to talk about the technologies (alcohol adjustment, micro-oxygenation and the like) that they're using in their winemaking?...read more
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New wine research centre opens in Bordeaux
Bordeaux's new oenology university and research institute, Institut des Sciences de la Vigne et du Vin, Bordeaux Aquitaine (ISW), has finally opened.
The new centre, which has taken ten years to plan and build, will be entirely dedicated to the study of winemaking.
The institute, which is situated within the Roccard to the south of the city, will unite Bordeaux's four universities and research institutes under the same roof for the first time.
Bordeaux architects Nicolas Ragueneau and Jean Marie Mazieres designed the modern, eco-friendly building which is made of stone and glass.
Costing Ђ25m, the ambitious project – the largest in Europe – was created using both local and EU funding.
'You can sum up in three words this exciting new centre's mandate,' says Professor Denis Dubourdieu, one of Bordeaux's leading winemakers. 'Research, training and communication.'
...read more
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Internet not a suitable tool for wine sales, says Vinexpo CEO
Vinexpo CEO Robert Beynat has dismissed the internet as a commercial tool for wine.
Speaking at the closing conference of the Bordeaux wine fair last week, Beynat said the web will 'never be anything other than a marginal circuit for sales.'
He had been asked about the rise of new media as a business channel replacing traditional trade fairs.
'The internet is not the right medium for the sale of wines and spirits, it is not a real alternative to traditional sales circuits and will never reach more than around 8% of the market.'
This contradicts a survey published by the Bordeaux Management School, also released during Vinexpo, that found sales of wine online in France have grown 30% in the last year alone.
...read more
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Tax-Free Wine Storage Comes to Bordeaux
Change to French customs law allows wine trade to store wines tax free in bonded warehouses, cutting costs and inefficiencies.Wine exporters, merchants and consumers will soon be able to store fine Bordeaux tax-free in secure, climate-controlled warehouses just down the road from the châteaus, thanks to a change in French tax legislation last week. The change in the law affects all of France, but Bordeaux already has two bonded warehouses ready to store wine—Bordeaux City Bond and a subdivision of Joanne, a well-known négociant. (The Joanne facility currently has no name, but will soon.)
While the change to tax law sounds arcane, it could have a big impact on the business of buying, selling and collecting Bordeaux. Wine buyers around the world can consolidate wine shipments and store them tax-free for an unlimited period of time. For example, a wine merchant from New York could buy Bordeaux from a number of different négociants and have the wine shipped straight to an account at BCB, where they would be held in bond until exported. French law previously allowed tax-free storage for two years, after which the 19.6 percent value-added tax had to be paid.
Because the United Kingdom had bonded warehouses, many merchants simply sent all their wines there to be stored. Last year's abolishment of taxes in Hong Kong on wine has helped develop a similar business there for Asian buyers....read more
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Winegrowers see a future in green
BORDEAUX, France (AFP) – Clean vineyards, "green" wines and lighter bottles? Many in the global wine and spirits business believe their only chance of long-term survival lies with sustainable development.
Even as the crisis threatens the industry's short-term survival, winegrowers large and small already are grappling with long-term viability.
"Within five years, there will be a global standard of sustainability and a level below which you cannot be," said Robert Joseph, a London-based writer and wine producer with interests in several countries.
He was speaking at Vinexpo, the world?s largest wine trade show that ran last week in Bordeaux.
Sustainable development -- not to be confused with organic or biodynamic production -- relies on finding a balance between social, economic and environmental costs and benefits.
It for instance would allow vine treatments in humid climates where rot could wipe out a crop overnight, but with limited use at low doses. It also requires care for the watershed and surrounding habitat.
In some case the motivation is altruistic, but in many cases it?s about managing future costs.
Castel, the world's third largest wine producer after Constellation Brands and Gallo, spent three million euros (4.2 million dollars) on a water treatment and recycling system at their Loire region bottling facility.
Castel produced 579 million bottles of wine in 2007. At the Loire facility, they treat enough water for a city of 60,000 inhabitants....read more
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Winemaking Calculators Go Online
New website's free tools provide help for busy winemakers
Sebastopol, Calif. -- A newly launched website, VinoEnology.com, is helping professional winemakers during their hectic crush. It was founded by Petar Kirilov, an industry consultant and winemaker for reverse osmosis and de-alc specialist Vinovation....read more
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