University of Adelaide PhD candidate Andrew O’Brien has been awarded Wine Australia’s Dr Tony Jordan OAM Award for 2025 to support his studies into the impact of novel cover crops on the aroma and flavour of wine.
The Australian Food and Wine Collaboration Group is headed to Tokyo in April as part of an ongoing effort to improve bilateral trade relations and increase export opportunities for Australia’s premium wine and food producers.
A feasibility study is underway in South Australia to determine if collection points in the state’s wine regions could be a simple, sustainable and cost-effective way to help vineyard owners manage the disposal of CCA-treated trellis posts.
Across Australian vineyards, it is estimated there are around 70 million timber trellis posts treated with CCA — a timber preservative containing copper, chromium and arsenic that protects it from fungal and insect attack. More than half of these are in South Australia, and each year, between 700,000 to 1.8 million CCA posts need to be disposed of across the state due to breakage, vineyard redevelopment or removal.
Emerging leaders in the Australian wine sector will have new opportunities to develop their skills, with Coonawarra Grape and Wine, Barossa Australia, Wine Victoria and the Queensland Wine Industry Association selected to deliver the Next Crop program in 2025.
For the first time, Next Crop will be offered in the Coonawarra wine region and Queensland. It is also returning to the Barossa, while Victoria’s program will focus on the Yarra Valley, Mornington Peninsula and Gippsland.
As the Australian wine sector moves towards its emissions reduction targets, six innovative packaging solutions for premium wine have been awarded Federal Government grants to test their feasibility.
The grants have been issued as part of the Business Research and Innovation Initiative (BRII) – Renewables and Low Emissions Round, managed by the Department of Industry, Science and Resources. BRII provides funding to startups and SMEs to develop innovative solutions for government policy and service delivery challenges.
Alternative packaging for premium Australian wine was among three challenges of the Renewables and Low Emissions Round.
Japan is a significant market for Australian wine, ranking as the eighth biggest export destination by volume and value. In the 12 months ended March 2019, exports to Japan grew by 16 per cent to reach a record $55 million.
Japan is by far the second biggest wine market in Asia behind mainland China. The International Wine and Spirit Record (IWSR) reports that 39.5 million cases of wine were sold in Japan in 2016, compared to 157 million cases in mainland China and 3.8 million cases in third-placed Hong Kong.