January, 20, 2011 Venomous cobras bottled to make wine

A village in Vietnam is producing snake and scorpion wine and shipping it worldwide. The venomous cobra snake is used to make the snake wine. This picture shows how the snake is preserved to have its poison dissolve in the rice wine. Because snake venoms are protein-based, they are inactivated by...

January, 19, 2011 NZ: Winegrowers should stick to what they know - New Zealand Wine Growers director

The biggest danger facing the New Zealand wine industry today is from over-expansion and over-production, according to the director for Europe at New Zealand Wine Growers.Speaking last week at the New Zealand Trade Tasting, David Cox warned producers not to try to compete in volume terms with countr...

January, 19, 2011 Argentina pulls ahead of Chile in wine exports to U.S.

Buenos Aires – Argentine wine exports to the United States topped those from neighboring Chile last year, spokespersons for the National Institute of Viniculture told Efe Tuesday. Argentina exported $222 million worth of wine to the United States in 2010, compared with $210 million for Chile. ...

January, 19, 2011 UK: Minimum pricing criticised by health campaigners but welcomed by trade

Government plans to set minimum prices for alcohol by banning the sale of drinks below cost price have been criticised by health campaigners but have been welcomed by the wine trade. The Coalition Government yesterday announced retailers would not be allowed to sell wine, beer and spirits at below c...

January, 19, 2011 Constellation plans to close Blackstone’s Kenwood winery

KENWOOD — Constellation Wines U.S. on Monday informed the 10 employees at the Blackstone winery and visitor’s center in Kenwood that it would be closed as of March 1 and possibly put up for sale, as production of Blackstone Sonoma Reserve wines has already relocated to Sonoma.“We determined it...

January, 19, 2011 Winegrapes Face Trials in Alabama

Auburn, Ala.—A researcher at Auburn University has planted Pierce’s disease-resistant grapevines developed at the University of California, Davis, to see if that state can produce traditional table wines. As in every other state, interest in winemaking and grapegrowing is expanding rapidly in...

January, 18, 2011 Troubling trend of biodynamic winemaking

There is no elegant way to put this: Part of the newest fad in winemaking involves placing German chamomile flowers in a cow's intestine, hanging the intestine from a tree in the summer, burying it in the ground over the winter, digging it back up again in the spring, discarding the intestine (thank...

January, 18, 2011 New grapes needed to ensure future wine

Scientists says the future of wine-making depends on developing new varieties of grape.Nearly all types of grape in use today belong to one species, meaning that they are vulnerable to the same diseases.Researchers in the United States have made genome maps of more 1000 vine samples.Writing in the m...