Eyeing up a highly lucrative new market, Australia's Barossa Valley this week played host to 600 young "wine ambassadors" emblematic of China's booming middle class. Employees of global beverages giant Pernod Ricard, the group were brought to Australia for a crash course in appreciating a wine range specially developed for the Chinese palate, Jacob's Creek's "Winemaker ...

The days of bad Bordeaux are numbered after a decision from the region's wine supremos to drastically cut production of lower-end bottles of the wine. Unveiling a strategy here this week, Bordeaux's wine trade council (CIVB) decided to increase overall production by 12 percent while reducing the current 1.1 million hectolitre production of so-called "Basic Bordeaux". These ...

Bordeaux wine supremos have ordered a cut in the amount of cheap plonk put on the market and the amount of land used for growing but are aiming to increase production. Bordeaux's wine trade council, the CIVB, decided this week to increase overall production by 12 percent while reducing the current 1.1 million hectolitre production of so-called "Basic ...

NEW YORK (Reuters Life!) - Roger Lowenstein, in "The End of Wall Street," his book about the financial crisis, tells a story about Vikram Pandit, the former hedge fund manager and now Citigroup's CEO. Pandit was lunching at legendary New York fish restaurant Le Bernadin, says Lowenstein, and, looking at the wine list, saw nothing by the glass that appealed ...

Divers have discovered what is thought to be the world's oldest drinkable champagne, fishing a bottle of the centuries-old bubbly from a shipwreck in the Baltic Sea. Dive instructor Christian Ekstrom says the champagne, believed to be from the 1780's, "tasted fantastic ...

BORDEAUX, France (Reuters Life!) - Prices for Bordeaux 2009 vintage wine that has not yet even been bottled look set to top those from the last classic year of 2005 thanks to demand from wealthy Chinese buyers and speculators. Prices straight from the producer have already reached 1,000 euros ($1,282) per bottle for exceptionally fine wines, according to the ...

In a country where the wine industry is dominated by mass-production vineyards producing mediocre wine, the Silver Heights winery perched at 1,200 metres (about 4,000 feet) is creating a buzz. Located on the eastern slopes of Mount Helan in the northern Ningxia region, China's first garage wine, or micro-winery, has won applause from wine lovers and support ...

China is mad for wine. At the Haagen Dazs cafe in the trendy Xintiandi district, well-heeled Shanghai urbanites decide between Rum Raisin and Cookies 'n Cream to go with their Chilean Late Harvest Sauvignon Blanc. While a wine glass might not grace every dining table in China, wine has become a symbol of a desirable urban lifestyle, equal parts sophistication ...

NEW YORK (Reuters Life!) - Sancerre is arguably the most well known white wine of France's Loire Valley, the benchmark sauvignon blanc appellation by which other examples of the variety in France - and throughout the world - are judged. New Zealand has made a splash in the last decade or so with its racy, citrusy sauvignons; Chile is heavily promoting similar ...

Sipping ruby-red Saperavi wine at his factory in eastern Georgia, Donato Lanati launched into a fervent ode to the ex-Soviet republic's ancient wine-making traditions. "Georgia is the birthplace of wine. It has millennia-long tradition of wine-making, but its excellent wines are an absolutely new discovery," outside the former Soviet Union, Lanati, an Italian who is chief wine-maker at the ...