The Wine Blokes

Articles, Stories and Posts from the Wine Blokes themselves. Interesting opinions, thoughts, and information.

The recent announcement by Constellation Wines (aka BRL Hardy for Aussie folk) that it is cutting it’s operations in Australia by shutting down 3 of it’s 10 production facilities hasn’t really come as a suprise for many industry watchers. The drought, high Aussie dollar and inflation have all contributed to the company’s decision to downsize.
These reasons […]

I read with amazement, and some humour the other day, of the rioting behaviour of vignerons in Montpellier late last month. It’s not the first time it’s happened. Indeed, disgruntled vignerons have descended to the streets with rocks and sticks quite a few times over the last century or so.
However, it’s certainly not humourous for […]

A couple of posts ago I wrote about the very small botique winery, Romney Park in the Adelaide Hills (Click to read the post).  Last night at a lavish party put on by some of our wino friends, I happened to meet the proprietors Rod and Rachel Short.  Of course their great wines were on […]

I somehow found a link to a new product on the market that claims to age wine in 30 minutes, rather than years. According to the developers, it will evolve an astringent, bitter, acidic wine into a soft, easy drinking style in less than 30 minutes. Of course I’m skeptical.
The developers say it works like […]

I grew up on a small family owned vineyard that grew into a small family owned wine company and brand over 20 years or so. Our family sold the vineyard and winery to others who had the ability to grow it to the next level. By global standards, it was extremely small, producing only around 5000 cases per annum.
Even […]

Today I was going to whinge about the “band-aid” approach the Australian governement is adopting to control binge drinking. They’ve decided to raise the tax on AlcoPops or RTD (Ready To Drink) beverages such as pre-mixed bundy and coke and and UDL’s.
However, I’ve found something much more interesting, for me anyway. Over at the […]

I recently saw some wine which was contained in a 1 litre cardboard juice carton similar to those used for cranberry juice. I was therefore not surprised to learn that Cordier Mestrezat would be unveiling lunch-box sized cartons of wine designed for consumption during lunch-breaks at the desk.
“Instead of buying a soda to go with […]

I was having a discussion today with a well known former winemaker of a very well known Australian Wine Company, and we both agreed to disagree on the advantages and disadvantages of screw cap closures versus traditional cork. The wine media and consequently the wine consumer in general have overwhelmingly accepted screw cap as the […]

The conjecture on global warming has gained momentum over the last few years and almost no industry has been left untouched by the looming economic and social upheavel as a consequence of whatever action is taken.  As we work in the wine industry and rely on the environment to produce wine, including macro climatic, meso climatic, […]

By Jon F.
On a recent trip to a large vineyard and cirtus region in South Australia, I was quite amazed and angry to drive past vineyard after vineyard on a near 40 degree C day, with over head irrigation systems pumping out litre after litre of precious Murray River water.
Firstly, with the technology available today […]