A Hawkes Bay Chardonnay has been awarded Champion Wine of Show at this year's Romeo Bragato Wine Awards.

New Zealand Winegrowers’ commitment to sustainability has been enforced with the news that a new management led hub will be established in Marlborough.

It is the wine that made New Zealand famous. More than a billion glasses of it are poured overseas every year. It is by far our largest export earner, estimated to bring in $1 billion annually.

Just as NZWinegrower magazine was going to print came the news of the signing of a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) between New Zealand Winegrowers and Air New Zealand.

Making great wine requires patience. Even if you get the combination of soil type, climate and grape variety right, it’s three years until your first crop, and a lot longer until the vines are performing at their best.

Waipara may be emerging from one of its wettest harvests in memory, but this hasn’t dampened the spirits of many of its winegrowers. Despite the recent inclement weather they’re remaining upbeat as the region enters what they consider to be a new and exciting era.

Acclaimed for the diversity of its wine styles, Hawke’s Bay can equally offer an array of reasons to explain mounting confidence in the future of its wine industry.  

In the last week or so there have been two developments which every grower and winery should note with some pride.

New Zealand is working on positioning itself as number 1 in the world for high quality, lower alcohol and lower calorie wines.

The Board of NZWinegrowers has recently agreed a 10 year strategy around major events and inbound visitors to New Zealand. The strategy is a direct follow up to a review of the very successful Pinot Noir 2013 held in Wellington a little more than a year ago.