More March!

Martin Field

More March!

Wine news on the e-vine

For both wine enthusiasts and researchers the internet is undoubtedly the most accessible and useful source of wine facts, wine trivia and news snippets about all sorts of alcoholic drinks. The booze surfer can speedily search for local and international news using the resources of online newspapers, magazines, industry journals, specialty wine news sites such as Wine Industry News, and news search engines including those at Excite, Yahoo! and Altavista.

A quick search one morning in March, using the key words wine and alcohol, produced the following diverse digest of stories.

Wine Today featured a story on devastating bushfires at Simonsberg in South Africa's Western Cape district. During the fires seven upmarket wineries were damaged resulting in a 20 per cent loss of premium wine production.

Simon Evans in the Australian Financial Review discussed the blue between Coles Myer's Liquorland and Foster's Mildara Blass. The heated words followed Mildara's purchase last year of direct wine marketers Cellarmasters and their recent $50 million acquisition of a stake in internet retailer Wine Planet. "Liquorland is angry about the dual role of the Foster's Mildara Blass wine unit as both a major supplier to the liquor trade and a retailer to the public." reported Evans.

Associated Press carried a story about the introduction of machine harvesting of the gamay grapes used to make Beaujolais. The top ten producers will for the first time use machines to harvest grapes for their top wines, while handpicking will be retained for Beaujolais Nouveau.

And there's trivia galore. Business Wire had Karen MacNeil's annual matching of wine varietals with Academy Award nominees. Among others she teamed Annette Bening with riesling, Meryl Streep - she of the perfect accents: "A dungo has toyken my whoite woyn!" - with chardonnay, and Russell Crowe with shiraz, you get the picture. Say, that gives me an idea, let's match Australian politicians with booze. Bronwyn Bishop with cask riesling - faint aroma of kerosene. Johnny Howard with cream sherry - "I sipped but I didn't swallow. Sorry!" Kim Beazley with vodka - colourless, odourless, mixes well with faddish flavourings. Nah, forget it, where was I?

Craig Smith of the New York Times - investigated wine drinking in modern China. According to Smith wine is taking over from cognac as a prestige drink among fashionable Chinese, although many find the taste of wine, especially red, too bitter. He went on, "much of the wine in China is of poor quality. Many people mix white wine with Coca-Cola or red wine with Sprite to make the drink more palatable."

Ian Henschke on ABC's Landline program provided an in-depth report on the current state of the Australian wine industry. He stated, ominously, "But the 2000 Vintage now under way has been plagued with problems. Grape growers have been hit by bad weather and lower prices and many are now questioning whether the good times may have finally ended."

Altavista quoted PRNewswire on a winemaking joint venture between Napa Valley's Terlato Wine Group, the Rhone Valley's Michel Chapoutier and Mount Langi Ghiran's Trevor Mast. The venture was created to produce premium, bio-dynamically grown shiraz from vineyards situated in Victoria's Pyrenees and Grampians regions.

And, also from Altavista, came a Reuters story on Richard Branson's forthcoming wine e-tail outlet, Virginwines.com. The new site will ".give on-line tipplers and would-be wine buffs the chance to buy quality labels at more affordable prices."

Lastly, from the Daily Mirror was the sad tale of former soccer genius George Best, the 53 year-old ex Manchester United star recovering in hospital from alcohol- induced liver damage. Happily, according to the Mirror report, Best is finally off the booze.

Tastings

Riddoch Coonawarra Sauvignon Blanc 1999

Light golden colour. Floral aromatics in the bouquet are reminiscent of Kiwi fruit and Granny Smith apples. Quite soft on the palate for this varietal, generous sweet fruit leading to surprisingly light acidity. Good as an aperitif. Rating: silver. Cellar: to 2003. Price: about $14.

Martin Field