July, 21, 2011 US: Rail Opens for North Coast Wine Freight

What would it be worth to the North Coast wine industry to remove hundreds of freight-hauling trucks from congested highways and ship wine and supplies via rail? Northern California railroad investors are betting years of effort and millions of dollars on that question, while waiting for wineries an...

July, 21, 2011 Greek wine industry in turmoil

Up until a few months ago and even though the effects of the economic crisis were becoming clearly visible in terms of sales, professionals involved in the Greek wine industry were all smiles. This was because, following years of introversion and thanks to a series of joint efforts, local wine produ...

July, 20, 2011 New Zealand vineland value drops 60%, but no takers

New Zealand vineyard prices have fallen significantly over the last four years, but the market for vineland is still stagnant, experts say. Prices across the country have come down by as much as 60% but there are still properties that have been on the market for several years. John Hoare, viticul...

July, 20, 2011 Aussies drinking less beer, more wine

Official statistics show the volume of beer consumed by Australians per capita has slipped to a 62-year low. Consumption of alcohol data compiled by the Bureau of Statistics reveals the average person consumed 4.56 litres of pure alcohol through beer during 2009-10. The per-capita volume was a...

July, 20, 2011 Canada: BC Grapegrowers Gather and Learn

British Columbia grapegrowers staring down a short season welcomed tips on canopy management at the annual BC Wine Grape Council meeting this week. The conference convened under rainy skies just a week after bloom finished at some vineyards in the northern part of the Okanagan Valley. Bloom usua...

July, 20, 2011 Vindaba to boost SA wine tourism

As South Africa works towards positioning itself as one of the world's top 20 travel destinations by 2020, the local wine and tourism industry are uniting to present the country's first specialist wine tourism exhibition, Vindaba. With the backing of national and provincial government, Vindaba wi...

July, 20, 2011 Are Italian Wine or Swiss Chocolate Really Better? A Revealing Taste Test

Can Chinese chocolate taste better than those incredibly delicious morsels from Switzerland, the center of the chocolate universe? Can cheap wine from India taste better than that pricy stuff from California's Napa Valley? That depends on what you know, and when you learned it, according to a new...

July, 20, 2011 Wine Buyers Look Online for Lafite and Latour

As Hong Kong’s glitzy hotels play host to ever more wine auctions, with furious paddle-waving and Asian bidders showered with samples of expensive bottles, a new battle for sales is taking place online. Anonymous bidders, identified by screen names like “LAFITE4EVER” (referring to Asia’s ...