December, 02, 2013 Oregon wine country at center of global land grab

(AP) — The pace of transactions for Oregon wineries and land in wine country is picking up significantly, and it's being helped along by capital infusion from California, France and Washington state. A number of factors, from relatively cheap land prices to availability of water, are driving ...

December, 02, 2013 Wine technology: Bacchus to the future

(Economist) - High-tech winemaking: Technology has already made poor plonk a thing of the past. What can it do to improve the world’s finest wines? IT IS five o’clock in the morning at the height of California’s harvest season, and the full moon hanging low over the Carneros hill...

December, 01, 2013 New Scarecrows for Vineyards: Car Dealers' Inflatable 'Dancing' Tube Men

(WSJ) - New York winery owner Ted Marks uses air cannons to scare away the birds that gobble up his vineyard grapes, but the noise can bother neighbors. He has tried prerecorded bird distress calls and big, shiny balloons and still, the birds peck away.  Finally, he got surprising help this...

November, 27, 2013 Sebastopol citizens group sues county, winemaker

(PD) - A citizens group is suing Sebastopol winemaker Paul Hobbs and Sonoma County over a 48-acre vineyard conversion project it says was approved in violation of state environmental laws. Watertrough Children's Alliance alleges in court papers filed Monday that Agricultural Commissioner Tony Line...

November, 27, 2013 Chinese buyer snaps up Opus One wine collection for $165,000 - Sotheby's

(Reuters) - A buyer in mainland China has forked over $165,000 to buy Sotheby's collection of 100 original wooden cases of the Californian wine Opus One, a favorite of deep-pocketed connoisseurs, the auction house said on Tuesday. "We are shipping it to Asia," Jamie Ritchie, Sotheby's head of wine...

November, 27, 2013 France: Dijon Spends $1.7m Of City's Funds on Vineyard

(Wine-Searcher) - Already renowned for its mustard production, the city of Dijon is now trying to cement its position as a wine center. The city council has announced that it has purchased a 160-hectare vineyard and farm with the aim of “consolidating its status and its image as a winemaking...

November, 27, 2013 Burgundy to consider increasing plantings

(TDB) - Two consecutive low volume vintages in Burgundy may mean the region needs to plant more vineyards to solve a current supply-demand imbalance. In a discussion with Louis-Fabrice Latour in London yesterday, the president of Beaune-based grower and négociant Maison Louis Latour said ...

November, 27, 2013 First Wine, Now Lavender? Another Iconic French Industry Threatened By Climate Change

(TP) - It’s known as “blue gold” and it has been cultivated in Provence, France since the Middle Ages. But now, a tiny bacteria-infected cicada is laying waste to a crop which is as iconically tied to Provence as lobsters are to Maine, or maple syrup is to Vermont — lavender...