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1 week ago | 
news.wine.co.za | Sarah Neish
First came glass, then cans, followed by paper, and now aluminium. No, we’re not talking about wedding anniversary gifts, but about the evolution of wine packaging. In 2023, hit Netflix show Bodies predicted that in 30 years' time glass wine bottles would be extinct, usurped by paper designs.
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2 weeks ago | 
thedrinksbusiness.com | Sarah Neish
After weeks of speculation, Trump has announced his global roll-out of tariffs. db distills the latest from the President's executive order.
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3 weeks ago | 
thedrinksbusiness.com | Sarah Neish
Winemakers in New Zealand’s Hawke’s Bay are fizzing with excitement as they say the region’s 2025 vintage could be “the one”. Last month db reported that two years on from the devastation caused to Hawke’s Bay by Cyclone Gabrielle, the region was looking at what had the potential to be an “exceptional vintage”.
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1 month ago | 
thedrinksbusiness.com | Sarah Neish
A Chilean Pinot Noir made from grapes grown by indigenous Mapuche communities is launching in the UK after 10 years of hard graft, lost vintages and cultural differences, writes Sarah Neish. But can it sell? Changing entrenched beliefs held by a community following generations of exploitation and land theft was never going to be quick or easy work.
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1 month ago | 
thedrinksbusiness.com | Sarah Neish
The Liquor Control Board of Ontario has denied a store altered labels to say that a wine from Trump supporter and ice hockey star Wayne Gretzky is “as weak as its namesake’s moral fibre” and “should be paired with boiled racoon”. Former ice hockey sensation Wayne Gretzky played 20 seasons in the National Hockey League (NHL) for teams including the Los Angeles Kings, New York Rangers and St Louis Blues.
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1 month ago | 
thedrinksbusiness.com | Sarah Neish
The Portuguese wine business wants to “reinvent the traditional members’ club” with a three-storey townhouse in the heart of Porto, and a vibe that’s anything but conventional, Rob Symington tells Sarah Neish. In October 2023, leading Port and Douro wine producer Symington Family Estates (SFE) created a wine club in honour of the family’s original matriarch, the Portuguese/British powerhouse Beatriz Leitão Carvalhosa Atkinson.
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1 month ago | 
thedrinksbusiness.com | Sarah Neish
Two years ago, Villa Maria founder Sir George Fistonich launched new winery project Čuvar, now run by his eldest daughter. Sarah Neish finds out why this boutique operation is world’s apart from the global wine giant. Sir George Fistonich was just 21 years old when he founded eponymous New Zealand wine brand Villa Maria in 1961.
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1 month ago | 
thedrinksbusiness.com | Sarah Neish
The style of New Zealand Pinot Noir differs from region to region, but the one thing it always expresses is the physical and spiritual influence of the country’s waterways, writes Sarah Neish. “We are water people and it is water that binds us,” said New Zealander Jeff Sinnott, a member of the Tuku Māori Winemakers Collective, at the long-awaited Pinot Noir NZ 2025 conference held in Ōtautahi Christchurch in February.
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1 month ago | 
thedrinksbusiness.com | Sarah Neish
A preliminary report from the US Department of Agriculture indicates that California’s 2024 grape crush is the lowest for 20 years. California, which produces around 80% of wine in the US, is braced for an unusually small 2024 vintage. According to The Pacific Region Grape Crush Report, published by the California Department of Food and Agriculture on 10 February, the state’s total combined red and white grape crush for 2024 was 2.844 million tonnes, down from 3.685 million tonnes in 2023.
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1 month ago | 
thedrinksbusiness.com | Sarah Neish
An organic Verdejo produced by Rueda wine cooperative Cuatro Rayas now features braille lettering to help people with visual impairments read its label. The front label on Cuatro Rayas’ Green & Social (G&S) Verdejo uses lettering from the Braille alphabet to communicate details about the winery, grape variety and vintage to visually impaired people.
