Bumper season boosts wine production
New Zealand’s wine industry is looking forward to increased sales, after a bumper season produced a surge in grape production this year.    New Zealand Winegrowers chief Philip Gregan said nature had delivered a bounty in 2008, with 285,000 tonnes of grapes harvested, up 39% on last year.    Gregan said [...]

Chester, PA - May 15, 2008 — Kasey Carpenter is known as “The Wine Mogul,” and he deals in the business of wine. There’s no shortage of wine fans in the U.S. (in fact, that number is growing every day), but few people really dig into the dollars and cents of how vino is produced. [...]

Georgia Governor Sonny Perdue signed legislation Tuesday to allow Sunday beer sales at Gwinnett County’s new baseball stadium and to let Georgians buy wine over the Internet.
Perdue, who has helped kill legislation allowing Sunday package store sales of alcohol, also signed a measure letting limo companies sell alcohol.
Perdue signed the liquor bills, along with dozens [...]

The US wine market soared to an estimated $30bn (£15bn) in 2007, as consumption of premium wine continued to grow despite the faltering economy.
Over 300m nine-litre cases of domestic and imported wine were shipped into the US in 2007, a rise of 4% over 2006, according to the Gomberg-Fredrikson Report. At the same time, the [...]

Consumer demand drives U.S. direct wine sales to record levels as more wineries than ever compete in a crowded market.
Windsor, CA (PRWEB) March 28, 2008 - U.S. consumer direct wine sales reached record levels in 2007, according to the latest research results published today by wine marketing advisors, VinterActive LLC.
Based on their annual VinQuestâ„¢ survey [...]

PARIS, March 27 (Reuters) - Burgundy producers have hiked their prices for the U.S. market by 10 to 20 percent over the past weeks due to the continued decline of the dollar, the president of the Burgundy wine association said on Thursday.
“We have been absorbing the dollar decline for the past few years. The producers [...]

Amazon, the world’s largest online retailer, is to start selling wine in the US, entering a business fraught with regulatory complexities and littered with the wreckage of previous failures.
Amazon is looking to recruit a senior wine buyer, whom it says will be responsible for “the acquisition of a massive new product selection” for its site. [...]

Visionaries from Mendocino County are looking to break down the walls between fine wine and craft beer in wine country. Don Barkley, a legend in U.S. craft brewing, left his post as master brewer at Ukiah-based Mendocino Brewing Co. in November and is preparing the inaugural releases this spring from a rare winery-brewery in south [...]

The more wine costs, the more people enjoy it, regardless of how it tastes, a study by California researchers has found.
Researchers at the Stanford Graduate School of Business and the California Institute of Technology found that because people expect wines that cost more to be of higher quality, they trick themselves into believing the wines [...]

Dec. 20 (Bloomberg) — Global wine sales by Christie’s International rose 22 percent to a record $71.65 million this year, as demand remained strong for top Bordeaux, Burgundy and Rhone vintages.
Christie’s European sales fetched a total $44.43 million and its U.S. auctions raised $27.22 million, the auction house said in an e-mailed statement yesterday. Sotheby’s [...]

Dec. 13 (Bloomberg) — U.S. wine auctions kept up 2007’s sizzling pace through the end of the season, with liquor added to the mix in New York for the first time since Prohibition.
Sales for the year at seven major auction houses, including liquor, totaled $208 million, up 25 percent from last year and almost double [...]

SAN FRANCISCO, Nov. 20 /PRNewswire/ — Wine.com, the #1 online wine store, announced today it has opened a retail store at its Berkeley, CA warehouse location. The store, located at 2220 4th Street, two blocks south of University Avenue and just off highway 80, offers immediate access to hundreds of Wine.com’s best wines from [...]

Oct. 25 (Bloomberg) — German wine growers on the banks of the river Moselle increased exports of their famous Riesling by 21 percent in the year through July on rising demand from the U.S. and Scandinavia.
Exports rose to 109 million euros ($156 million) from 90 million euros a year earlier, the Moselle Wine Growers Association [...]

Safeway plans to delve into Internet sales of wine directly to consumers. The Pleasanton-based grocery chain applied for a conditional use permit from American Canyon to open a tiny office alongside New Vine Logistics’ 130,000-square-foot pick-and-pack facility at 125 Mezzetta Court.
The commission unanimously approved the permit on Sept. 27, conditioned on Safeway’s obtaining a state [...]