When it opens in August 2009, Niagara College's new Wine Education and Visitor Centre will do more than teach aspiring winemakers the intricacies of vineyard management and grape fermentation. The $3.2-million centre at the college's Niagara-on-the-Lake campus will give wine country tourists a central location where they can learn about Ontario wine. Administrators hope the new building, to be nestled into the college's 40-acre vineyard, will be a hub for Niagara's wine region, giving visitors one-stop access to information on all wineries in the province. On a rotating basis, wineries will be invited to set up in the college's 2,000-square-foot retail wing and offer samples to visitors.

The small worldwide wine industry needs to stop working in silos and start sharing its research findings, says South Australia's minister of agriculture, food and fisheries. "We tend to do too many things in silos," Rory McEwen said during a visit to the Vineland Research and Innovation Centre Thursday afternoon. "We duplicate some stuff and we have too many gaps. The wine industry globally is too small for that." McEwen's visit was the next step in a budding wine research relationship between the Australian state and Ontario, particularly Niagara.

As if we needed more encouragement to drink wine. But a new Canadian study is providing yet more proof that a glass after work may benefit your health in addition to relieving stress from your day. While the idea that certain wines may be good for you has long been known, researchers at the University of Guelph believe they have discovered one of the key reasons why red wine, grapes and other fruits and vegetables may play a role in warding off disease. They found that tumour growth was almost completely stopped in mice that were given polyphenols extracted from merlot grapes and red wine. Polyphenols are a group of chemicals, commonly found in grapes, berries and other fruits and vegetables, that are known for their antioxidant effects. The findings will be published this month in the journal Nutrition Research.

Pick up a bottle of wine from Australia, New Zealand, Europe or the U. S., and it's typically there: a label warning consumers that the product contains sulphites. Canadian wineries are not required to tell consumers if their wines contain the substance, which can cause allergic reactions in a small segment of the population, primarily people with asthma. Sulphites naturally occur in foods, such as wine, and the human body, but can also be regulated food additives used to maintain colour, prolong shelf life and prevent the growth of micro-organisms. But Health Canada is looking to change the country's sulphite labelling rules. Under proposed changes announced in July, any food producer, including wineries, would be required to declare a product contains sulphites when directly added to food or when the total amount of the substance is 10 parts per million or more.

A funny thing happened at Reif Estate Winery during the Canadian recession of the early 1990s: Wine sales went up — way up. In 1991 and 1992, the Niagara-on-the-Lake winery had the biggest sales increases in its history up until that point, said Klaus Reif, who owns the 26-year-old winery. With current turbulent economic times around the globe and fortunes evaporating, Reif said he hopes history repeats itself.

An herbicide that is effective at killing broadleaf weeds in corn, but also annihilated most of the grapes in Illinois and other Midwestern states, may finally have a worthy contender. Researchers at the University of Illinois have developed a new grape called Improved Chancellor which is resistant to the popular herbicide 2, 4-D.

Niagara's wine industry is growing and it's time for the region's academic wine institute to grow with it. There are plans to expand Brock University's Cool Climate Oenology and Viticulture Institute, which opened in the fall of 1997. It's time to go beyond science and take a closer look at the business and marketing side of wine, says Debbie Inglis, the institute's newly appointed director. Currently, Cool Climate Oenology and Viticulture Institute's four core researchers focus their work largely on the science of grape growing and wine-making, from icewine to insect pest pressure on vines to soil to consumer perception of wine.

In Latin, Calamus means arrow. When Derek Saunders and Pat Latin bought a Jordan farm seven years ago, they unearthed several arrows, stone flints and other aboriginal artifacts while digging up the soil to plant a 22-acre vineyard. Today, the 42-acre plot at 3100 Glen Rd. is known as Calamus Estate Winery.

Debra Inglis, an associate professor of biology at Brock University, was chosen as the new director of Brock's Cool Climate Oenology and Viticulture Institute in St. Catharines, Ontario. She succeeds Isabelle Lesschaeve, who has returned to her research and teaching position at CCOVI.

Debra Inglis, a Brock University professor and resident of Niagara who has been involved in the local grape and wine industry since she was a child, has been chosen as the new Director of Brock’s Cool Climate Oenology and Viticulture Institute (CCOVI). Inglis brings to the position more than 10 years experience in grape and wine research. An Associate Professor of Biological Sciences, Inglis’ research is central to the CCOVI icewine program, which aims to improve icewine quality and guarantee its authenticity on the world stage.

Fergie Jenkins has his face on plenty of baseball cards. You can also find his mug in Cooperstown, N.Y., as the first Canadian inducted into the National Baseball Hall of Fame. The face of Canada’s major league pitching legend now has a new home: on bottles of wine from Rockway Glen Estate Winery.

Every time consumers buy a local Ontario wine, they contribute $8.48 per bottle to the local economy, a new study done for the Wine Council of Ontario says. In comparison, buying imported wine contributes just 67 cents to local labour, business and government incomes, the study conducted by accounting firm KPMG LLP found. The report was released today during the first week of a month-long promotion of local wines at LCBO stores.

This isn't going to be a call to privatize the LCBO. But it is a call to diversify the marketplace by allowing the creation of privately-owned stores that specialize in wine to run alongside the government-owned LCBO. The government holds a near monopoly on liquor and wine sales in this province, and has proven reluctant to relinquish its grip. But expanding wine sales beyond the public sector will benefit both Ontario consumers and an important domestic industry. Ontario has a growing wine industry that is hampered by limited access to the marketplace.

Just like the well-groomed grape grower, Lou Puglisi's 60-acre vineyard looks well-coiffed. Keeping his lines of vines pristine is top priority for Puglisi, a second-generation Niagara-on-the-Lake grower and this year's Grape King. Like a doctor, he strives to ensure his Line 2 vineyard is healthy. He regularly tests the soil and analyzes the leafy canopy, ensuring the grapes are free of pests and disease. Puglisi has persevered through a challenging wet summer by regularly spraying the vines for disease, such as powdery mildew, and trimming back unruly leaves. It takes good grapes to make good wine, Puglisi said.

Colourful hockey commentator Don Cherry gladly pulled off his floral printed jacket and slid on a navy Grape King blazer at a luncheon Wednesday afternoon. The 74-year-old, noted for his outlandish commentary and fashion sense, became an honorary “Grapes” king at the 25th annual Scotiabank Celebrity Luncheon, hosted by the Grape Growers of Ontario. For more than 50 years, Ontario grape growers voted Grape King have donned the overcoat, but don’t expect the man nicknamed Grapes to wear it on his popular Coach’s Corner segments during Hockey Night in Canada. “I can’t promote anything on the air,” Cherry told The Standard after the luncheon.

Here in British Columbia's south Okanagan, you wouldn't know the world's financial system is teetering. Or that there is a federal election under way. No, here in paradise all they are talking about is the harvest and what kind of year it's going to be for Gewurztraminers and Ehrenfelsers.

If British Columbia can have Vintners Quality Alliance-only stores, why can't we? It's a common refrain in Ontario's wine industry. Turns out, it's a story of co-operation between B. C. wineries, old store licences kept in drawers and provincial governments willing to reactivate them.

It's a growing frustration for an ever-growing number of Ontario wineries, particularly the more than 80 small-scale wineries that sell 120,000 bottles of wine or less per year. For the majority of them, wine is sold in their tasting rooms, in restaurants, bars or, if possible, the LCBO -- that's it.

Wild Earth Wines, a Central Otago winemaker, has been awarded the trophy for Top Red Wine at the International Wine Challenge, the world's largest competition.

Sultry weather can be hard on any traveler, and for wine it can be disastrous. A high-tech shipping label now being used by some in the industry aims to warn customers if there's a chance they're getting cooked cabernet. About the size of a pack of sugar, the labels can be programmed for a range of temperatures and placed directly on the product or product packaging. A light flashes green if the product stays within specifications and yellow if it doesn't.

Ready or not, a federal election has been called for Oct. 14. Like many industry groups, the Canadian Vintners Association, a national membership-driven organization based in Ottawa, is compiling its wish list on behalf of the country's wineries. At the top of the pile is money for a national grape and wine research program, said Paul-Andre Bosc, chairman of the CVA and vice-president of marketing and administration at Chateau des Charmes Wines Ltd. in Niagara-on-the- Lake.

A new scientific study offers good news for both athletes and wine fans. Researchers at the University of South Carolina say a chemical found abundantly in red wine, apples and onions helps protect against influenza, especially after a rigorous respiratory workout when the body is more susceptible to infection.

Authorities have clamped down on out-of-province sales by B.C. wineries to private customers, closing the door to a growing market niche for the province's popular wines. The get-tough policy comes from the Manitoba and Ontario liquor control boards in response to wineries shipping directly to customers in those provinces either through their websites or as a result of tourist visits to vineyards.

At about this time next year, nearly all of the 2,800 wild, rare and domesticated grapes in a unique northern California genebank will have had their "genetic profile" or "fingerprint" taken. These fingerprints may help grape breeders pinpoint plants in the collection that have unusual traits - ones that might appeal to shoppers in tomorrow's supermarkets. Other grapes might be ideal for scientists who are doing basic research.

Building upon an idea launched at the Riesling Rendezvous event held this July in Washington state, the International Riesling Foundation (IRF) this week published a scale for members to differentiate the various sweetness levels of the popular varietal. The taste scale, spearheaded by Dan Berger, a long-time wine writer based in Sonoma County, is meant to help educate consumers about Riesling and its different levels of sweetness. According to the IRF, many consumers assume that all Rieslings are sweet, dessert wines and are unaware of its many styles.

A newly launched website, VinoEnology.com, is helping professional winemakers during their hectic crush. It was founded by Petar Kirilov, an industry consultant and winemaker for reverse osmosis and de-alc specialist Vinovation. Visitors to the website can instantly access winemaking calculators for: * Fermentation (Brix, yeast, nutrients); * Chaptalization and water dilution (sugar and water additions); * SO2 (addition of potassium metabisulfite and liquid SO2 solution); * Acid addition (tartaric, malic and citric acid addition); * Fining and oak addition (clarification and oak wood chips addition); * Fortification (alcohol addition); * Blending and cost calculator (wine blending and cost).

Nova Scotia is a cool-climate region, with a relatively short growing season. They are limited to varieties that ripen fairly quickly, so there are good rieslings and chardonnays, and also some early-ripening native and hybrid varieties that we in Ontario don't encounter much on a daily basis -- varieties like l'Acadie blanc, New York muscat, ortega, and seyval blanc.

Increasing interest in Riesling as a possible signature white wine for Ontario, Canada, was the motivation behind the 2008 Riesling Experience conference held at Brock University in St. Catharines, Ontario, on July 17. The idea for the conference came in 2005, after New Zealand's David Jordan gave a lecture at Brock University, where he referred to Riesling as the "White Knight."

Helping wine businesses to stay current on the international wine market, The Insider News ' wine articles feature key information and events about the world wine industry.

Cutting through perception to get at the real value of wine and wine-related businesses was a key focus of presenters at the second annual conference of the American Association of Wine Economists in Portland, Ore., on Aug. 14-16. One of the most talked-about presentations was the intro to author Robin Goldstein's discussion of whether or not wine value correlates with consumer appreciation of a wine's intrinsic qualities (not necessarily, he found).

A large, new liquor store in south St. Catharines will likely offer the largest selection of premium Ontario Vintners’ Quality Alliance wines in the province.

An informal research project by a British Columbia winemaker is highlighting the contribution barrels make to the flavor profile of well-known varietal wines. Michael Bartier, winemaker at Golden Mile Cellars in Oliver, B.C., began his effort to document the impact of different barrel styles on Golden Mile's wines in 2005. The project, he says, will help him refine the style of wines Golden Mile produces.

US liquor giant Constellation Brands is to put about $200 million of Australian wine assets on the market, rationalise its packaging operations, increase prices, slash jobs and shed about a third of the labels carried under its brand names.

The yeast that ferments grapes into wine, first evolved the ability to make alcohol to engineer its environment and poison its competitors, says a new report. The yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae makes up only a small proportion of the yeast on grapes while growing in the vineyard, but it comes to dominate natural fermentation processes by producing alcohol and heat. Together, these make the environment toxic to most other microorganisms, and while not ideal for S.cerevisiae either, the food freed up gave the species an evolutionary edge that more than compensated.

Spanish scientists have invented an ``electronic tongue'' that they say can check the quality of wines and detect fakes in the $6.8 billion market for vintages. The pocket-sized probe uses chemical sensors to measure a wine's characteristics, including the year and grape variety, according to the latest Analyst journal published by the U.K.'s Royal Society of Chemistry.

When cool climate grapes grow in a warm climate area and produce spectacular wine ostensibly atypical of that area, the question arises: “So just what defines a so-called cool climate?” Dan Berger runs hot and cold on the answer.

The grape Carmenere presents a bit of a conundrum. A relatively obscure variety, it is becoming better known - at least in Chile, where it has found a welcome home. More Carmenere, one of Bordeaux's six noble grape varieties, is being planted in Chile every year, with vineyards totaling 17,749 acres in 2006.

Wine is the result of a competition between microbes for nutrients, research suggests. Scientists at The University of Auckland studying yeast used in winemaking have discovered the reactions that turn grape juice into wine are a mechanism to ensure the yeast secures many of the nutrients from the fruit.

You don't need a wine expert to identify a '74 Pinot Noir from Burgundy – a handheld "electronic tongue" devised by European scientists will tell you the grape variety and vintage at the press of a button.

Australian kingpin Brian McGuigan has seen the future of wine – and it's floral, and low in alcohol. McGuigan is so convinced that low-alcohol, light floral flavours are going to be so popular both stylistically and politically that he has embarked on a major planting programme.

Doing more with little is the objective of a new Canadian wine marketing initiative that the industry hopes to debut in Chicago later this year. Canada exports 2.8 million liters (about 740,000 gallons) of wine per year, but shipments are hampered by limited domestic production capacity. Most of the wine Canada exports is ice wine, which accounts for approximately half of the wines exported by Ontario--the country's major wine-exporting region.

Grape price negotiations broke down this week between Ontario grape growers and wineries, forcing the two sides to take their dealings to a third-party arbitrator. The Grape Growers of Ontario want to see wine grape prices per tonne increase or remain the same, depending on variety. The Wine Council of Ontario wants prices to drop.

Over 300 attendees gathered at the 9th Annual Enology and Viticulture Conference on July 21 and 22 in Penticton, British Columbia, making it the largest turnout since the event first debuted--a trend that isn't surprising considering more and more wineries are appearing in BC every year. The conference, which is made up of seminars, workshops, sensory tastings and a trade show, was put on by the BC Wine Grape Council to raise funds for research and development for wine grape production and enology.

Booming wine consumption in China is leading to a growth in locally produced wines but as Chinese tastes become more sophisticated, local wineries are finding that they need to play catch up in terms of quality and vintage.

If you think Canada = Icewine, you'd be right. If you think of Canada for world-class sparkling wines, you'd be right again. Really.

Terry Cotter, a veteran of the liquor and legislative businesses, is the new executive director of the British Columbia Wine Institute. As he settled into his new office Wednesday, Cotter, the former owner of a former pub and liquor store on tiny Bowen Island, just outside Vancouver, told Wines & Vines that he's looking forward to fostering relationships between stakeholders and building up the industry.

When the Speck brothers dug a pond in the middle of their first vineyard in the early 1980s, environmental stewardship wasn't top of mind. "We needed a holding tank to put our drainage water (in)," said Matthew Speck, co-owner of the family-run Henry of Pelham Winery in St. Catharines. Last summer, that changed. Runoff from the vines is now filtered through a series of trenches, which cleans the water before spilling it into a shallow, biodiverse wetland -- surrounded by bulrushes and natural plants. The water later flows into nearby Richardson's Creek, reducing phosphates, which cause algae blooms in lakes.

Canadian golf star Mike Weir has parted ways with the Niagara company that's produced his line of successful wines for the last three years. The PGA Tour player and Creekside Winery Group severed their business ties June 30.

Researchers have devised a vocabulary based on familiar liquids, foods and household materials that they feel best describes the wide range of textures experienced when quaffing a chardonnay or a pinot grigio. Until now there has been no reliable "lexicon" to describe a wine's texture, says Gary Pickering, the professor of wine science at Canada's Brock University, who led the research.

Niagara's Twenty Valley region is a green community to the core. Every day, the area's wineries and farms put green practices to use from insecticide-free vineyards, to wine-making complete with geo-thermal heating/cooling and gravity flow at both Tawse Winery and Flat Rock Cellars.

Using wine in cocktails is a surefire way to scandalize the serious wine aficionados in your life, which is always fun. The other day, for instance, I prepared my favorite wine-based drink at a little get-together. I opened a decent bottle of Rioja, poured some into a highball glass filled with ice, then topped it with an equal measure of Coca-Cola.

Red wine exercises its benefits before it enters the bloodstream.

France will lose its top spot as the world's number one wine producer to Spain by 2015, according to a study released by the country's independent wine producers.

A cross-country alliance of wineries that calls itself the "Eh Team" is trying to get B.C. wines on wine lists across the globe. The idea is that if the wineries -- many from the Okanagan and from Ontario's Niagara-on-the-Lake area -- can put their products on the shelf next to premium products, then consumers will recognize our quality.

Andrew Peller Limited (the "Company") (Toronto:ADW-A.TO - News) and (Toronto:ADW-B.TO - News) announced today that it had acquired 100% of the common shares of World Vintners Inc. ("WVI"), a producer and seller of high quality consumer-made wine kits. WVI's sales for its most recently-completed financial year ended July 31, 2007 were approximately $12.0 million. The purchase price was approximately $9.0 million. The acquisition brings to the Company a dedicated network of 75 franchised wine-on-premise and retail outlets under the Wine Kitz brand name. The Company remains committed to WVI's franchisees and will invest in the network to enhance its marketing, service, and support. Franchisees will benefit from the Company's market leadership, financial strength and reputation for quality and service. WVI also produces the popular Heron Bay brand sold through independent wine-on-premise and retail outlets across Canada

The Barley Yard Brewing Co., a new venture for Three Brothers Winery, is offering a Riesling ale. Yes, that’s right: beer made with wine grapes. “It’s the first Riesling ale in the U.S.,” says Dale Nagy, winemaker at the Geneva winery.

Nova Scotia wineries have been producing award-winning wines, and now a development organization in the Annapolis Valley wants to help the industry grow by attracting investors. Colby Clarke, a development officer with the Kings County Economic Development Agency, said he wants to put together a marketing kit aimed at people who want to invest in Nova Scotia wineries and vineyards.

new Nova Scotia winery is embracing the technology of the future and the winemaking traditions of the past. L'Acadie Winery, in Gaspereau near Wolfville, is Nova Scotia's first certified organic vineyard, and the winery has an environmentally friendly geothermal heating and cooling system. The new operation is also producing organic sparkling wines, using a traditional method that's new to area winemakers.

Viticulture is facing severe skilled-labour crunch. To improve matters, the country's first ever wine institute will be set up in Narayangaon, around 80 kilometres north of Pune — a region considered as the hub of wine production in India.

Free Trade is always something good, even for wine drinkers. At least, that's what The Economist says on its Free Exchange economics blog, pointing to a study by the Journal of Wine Economics. "We find that there is an overall decrease in the real price of a shopping cart of all 100 wines from year to year," the study says. Using constant 1988 dollars, the study demonstrates that the price on the entire basket of the top 100 wines in the United States fell from US$4,313 in 1988 down to US$3,132 in 1993, then to US$2,533 in 1999, then to US$2,421 in 2004. This is a 44% decrease in prices over only 16 years. The quality of the wines included in the top 100 list stayed roughly the same over the studied period.

Long regarded as a superstar by wine critics and devoted oenophiles, Riesling is on the rise. For years, critics the likes of U. K.'s famed Jancis Robinson -- who has called Riesling "the greatest white wine grape in the world" -- have waxed poetic about the noble grape's diversity of styles, ability to pick up regional character, consistent quality and great companionship with food. In recent years, the oft-shunned white grape variety has found a new following with consumers scooping up bottles in record numbers both in Ontario and across the United States.

After red wine, now it’s turn for white wine to contain all the goodness of health. The researchers from Technion, the Israeli Institute of Technology have developed white wine with the same health benefits as red. Israeli scientists revealed that they have developed a white wine with boosted levels of plant chemicals and polyphenols which are believed to fight heart disease.

Canadian supplier Functional Technologies Corporation has reinvented its wholly-owned subsidiary, Phyterra Yeast, as it moves to the brink of bringing its premium yeast offerings to market. Testing had demonstrated Phyterra Yeast can reduce ethyl carbamate (also known as urethane) formation - a potentially toxic consequence of both commercial and home wine making - by between 30 and 90 percent in comparison to "regular yeast".

Foster's Group Ltd.'s wine business, the world's second-largest, is worth about A$3.8 billion ($3.6 billion) according to analyst Larry Gandler, or about 44 percent less than the Australian company spent creating it.

Thanks to a crop of talented chefs, the Okanagan Valley is ripe for a foodie invasion.

Two decades ago many U.S. grape growers were ripping out Riesling vines to plant more Chardonnay as Riesling was falling out of favor in the marketplace. Today consumers have rediscovered Riesling, making it the fastest-growing white wine varietal for the third straight year. During the 12-month period ending May 3, 2008, Riesling was the fastest-growing white varietal and second-fastest growing of all varietals, second to Pinot Noir, according to AC Nielsen data. Sales of Riesling have increased 54% over the past 3 years (according to Nielsen data). At the forefront of the growth of the Riesling category is Washington state’s pioneering winery Chateau Ste. Michelle, whose Columbia Valley Riesling is the best-selling Riesling in the United States. The winery is the leading global Riesling producer and the category leader of this growing Riesling market

Canadians may still love a good brew, but over the course of a decade, market share for beer has dipped while wine has been on the rise, according to new statistics. And insiders say the changes are likely linked to an emerging sophistication in consumer tastes. Popping open a cold one still holds appeal for the majority of Canadians. Almost 2.3 billion litres of beer were sold in 2006-07, amounting to $8.4 billion in sales - an increase from the previous year. But over a 10-year period, beer has seen a decline in its market share, according to figures released Monday by Statistics Canada.

Beer remains the alcoholic drink of choice for Canadians in terms of both volume and dollar value, but its dominance continues to decline as consumers turn more to wine. Canada's beer and liquor stores and agencies sold more than $18.0 billion worth of alcoholic beverages during the fiscal year ending March 31, 2007, up 4.9% from the year before. This was the fastest rate of growth in sales since 2003.

Foreign winemakers may gnash their teeth -- and connoisseurs turn up their noses -- but there is little they can do as a boom in wine drinking appears to be passing them by. The quality of Indian wine varies enormously, with the better regarded vineyards relying on French and American experts to produce to international standards, while others simply use table grapes. After one tasting, US wine blog Vinography praised several Indian wines, including a popular white for its apple flavours and "smooth, silky body," but urged drinkers to avoid others, noting that one red smelled of "wet Band-aids".

A half-century ago, Vince Bedient spent his days chopping down trees for his father's sawmill, stealing time during harvest to haul farmers' grapes to a Welch's juice factory. His seasonal job soon had him daydreaming about the splendors of cultivating his own vineyard high above Keuka Lake, and a mishap felling an ash tree in the snowy woods in 1963 made up his mind fast.

In California, where "Cinderella" white zinfandels were born, producers are experimenting with other grapes to make rosé. Elizabeth Grant-Douglas, one of the first students to graduate from Niagara's Brock University in winemaking, is sculpting wines at La Crema Winery in Sonoma. She shared a bottle of her very modern 2006 Pinot Noir Rosé, explaining: "We take the juice from our best tanks for our rosé." This sells for $20 in California and quantities are too limited to market it here.

British Columbians at all levels are being asked to get serious about water use in the face of population growth and climate change, and to help meet a provincial target of improving water efficiency by one-third by 2020.

Increasingly, some very good wineries have taken to packaging their product in a box. Boxed wines, in fact, have become the fastest-growing segment of the industry.

“In the next 10 years there will be 300 million upwardly mobile Indians who can afford wine and for whom it will be a lifestyle choice,” Mr. Dhuru said. “A lot of them will be drinking Indian wines.”

Author and journalist Christopher Hitchens has launched a scathing attack on restaurants and sommeliers, calling them 'barbaric', 'rude' and 'boors'. Writing for online magazine The Slate, the British-born Hitchens attacked sommeliers who 'interrupt' dinner-table conversation and lean over diners to pour out the wine. The writer also drew a parallel with a waiter leaning over a guest to cut up his or her food.

As the global wine industry converges here this week to crack open the mainland Chinese market, this city is touting its prospects as a regional nexus for trade in wine. On Wednesday, Hong Kong officially zeroed out its taxes on wine, and on Saturday morning the city will host a US$6.5 million auction of vintages, billed as the largest ever in Asia. Local importers, meanwhile, are scrambling to secure warehouse space for more bottles or, in some cases, build their own cellars.

After long scorning the international appetite for “vulgar” wine, France joined the fray yesterday and allowed growers to make and market their product in the fruity fashion of the New World. Wood chips, added tannin and other “foreign” techniques will be tolerated in a new category of mid-quality wine that will be defined by grape variety rather than origin. In a heresy for traditionalists this me

There's another spinoff of the growing tide of aging baby boomers, beyond sweeping retirements, extra stress on health care and increased demand for nursing homes. These folks are a big group and they drink wine. Lots of it. And soon that lucrative, greying market for Ontario wineries will dry up, says a consumer insight expert with the LCBO. Currently, 42 per cent of those aged 45 to 64 buy wine on a weekly basis in Ontario, Pamela Lawson told a crowd gathered for Niagara College's Uncorked wine industry conference.

A new technology developed by G3 Enterprises of Modesto can remove TCA and related contaminants from wine as easily as sterile filtering, using existing winery equipment.

Turns out, it's still possible to build a better bottle cap – and, maybe, get rich doing it. This week, the winners of the annual Big Bang business plan competition at the University of California, Davis, took home $15,000 in start-up funding for a newfangled cap they say combines the breathability of cork with the reliability and convenience of a screw cap.

Historically, dry rosés had a meager following in the United States. Its color led many to believe that they fell in the same class as their pink predecessors, fizzy blush wines and White Zinfandels, which were often considered sweet, low-quality drinks that clashed with most foods. A few years ago, it was rare to find dry rosés on wine lists and even if one did appear, people were too inhibited by its stigma to order it.

LCBO today released its financial results for fiscal 2007-08, reporting more than $4 billion ($4.1 billion) in net sales for the first time. It also delivered a $1.345 billion dividend, not including taxes, to the Ontario government. This revenue helps pay for health care, education, social programs, infrastructure and other important government services. LCBO staff challenged more than two million people who appeared underage or intoxicated, up 11 per cent from 2006-07. More than 134,000 were refused service, a nine per cent increase, the vast majority for reasons of age. "Our goal at all times is to balance service with social responsibility," notes LCBO President and CEO Bob Peter. "Last year was our biggest-ever for sales and our most vigilant at the checkout."

If you want to test the power of brand imagery on the consumer, walk into any well-stocked wine shop. Psychologists could have a field day with the labels, which are designed to make a fast impression on the casual buyer. More than 4,800 vineyards in the United States compete for the discretionary dollar, so packaging must be both visual and subliminal - honing in on personalities, genders, age groups and lifestyles. Bottle and label design must convey simplicity or sophistication, as well as the consumer's perception about cost, according to new study by Oregon State University. The report, which appears in the May issue of the Journal of Marketing, surveyed more than 300 people and 125 design experts on many of the top brands of wine.

Vintners in California's renowned Napa Valley on Monday launched an Internet tribute to pioneering US wine-maker Robert Mondavi, who died three days earlier in his home in the region. The Napa Valley Vintners Association created an online "toast" to Mondavi on its website at www.napavintners.com, inviting people to share their memories of the icon in words and pictures.

Robert Mondavi, a legendary Napa Valley vintner who helped bring California wine worldwide acclaim, died Friday at his northern California home in Yountville at the age of 94. California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger called him "a true California legend." The son of Italian immigrants, Mondavi founded a winery bearing his name in Napa Valley in 1966 and went on to become one of the most prominent figures of the US wine industry, making famed Cabernets and Chardonnays.

Canada could become a real contender on the world wine stage in 50 years if global warming persists, suggests a new report. The country's wine industry could grow well beyond established Niagara and British Columbia's Okanagan Valley and start pumping out volumes to meet demands of a global audience, predicts the Berry Bros & Rudd (BBR) future of the wine industry report.

The Australian Wine Research Institute says reducing the alcohol levels in wine could enhance flavour. The Institute's Dr Paul Chambers says he is working on ways to develop wine yeasts that will convert less of the grape sugar into alcohol. Dr Chambers says high alcohol levels are caused by grapes being left on the vine longer to get better flavours and aromas.

Anyone who sets foot inside an LCBO store this month will be awash in images and information promoting Californian wine. The trendsetting grape and wine industry is celebrating its first major month-long promotion at liquor stores - a campaign that organizers are calling the largest California wine push ever staged outside of the United States.

While wine consumption is increasing in the U.S. -- spurred on in part by the wine adoption habits of American Millennials (young adults aged 21 to 31) -- the opposite is happening in France. Since 1980 French wine consumption has decreased by more than 50% from 120 liters per capita to today's rate of 55 liters per capita.

Any sommelier worthy of the name will tell you that choosing wine is an art, but a new Canadian research institute is out to prove there's a science to it as well. The new Consumer Perception and Cognition Laboratory at Ontario's Brock University is said to be the first academic facility in North America dedicated exclusively to studying the link between consumer approval and wine's origins and flavours.

It's a windowless room found after navigating the maze-like halls of Brock University's research and innovation centre, a site located off-campus on a nearby residential road. Inside, there's a U-shaped table, a massive screen and a series of shelves stocked with wines from around the world. Though a basic, clinic-like laboratory today, this same space could be converted to resemble a winery tasting room, or restaurant, or an aisle at an LCBO store. This new Consumer Perception and Cognition Laboratory is a blank canvas, ready to gauge the tastes of wine consumers and what drives them to pick up a bottle.

Located in the heart of Ontario's Niagara wine region, a new laboratory at Brock University, named the Consumer Perception and Cognition Laboratory (CPCL), is the first in North America to exclusively study the relationship between consumer approval and wine origins and flavours.

It's a quaint myth: Wine is a product of nature, the simple spawn of fruit and airborne yeast. To drink anything more ancient or unadulterated, you'd have to dip your cup into a stream, crack a coconut or milk a cow. That's how it has been for 9,000 years, but over the past two decades, myriad technologies and lab tricks have turned that typical weeknight bottle into the potable equivalent of cake from a mix. At least that's the feeling you get after reading the book The Battle for Wine and Love by New York writer Alice Feiring, out next month.

For decades, because of its cool climate, the Mosel wine region in Germany barely produced three so-called vintage years out of every ten. But since the early 1990s, summers have heated up, and German wine producers have experienced at least 10 great vintages among a few, if any, bad ones.

Researchers at a new consumer lab at Brock University in Ontario, Canada, are working with partners in the industry to study consumer attitudes about wine. The Consumer Perception and Cognition Laboratory is located in Ontario's Niagara wine region and is outfitted to perform traditional research as well as focus groups, simulated consumer environments, and mapping preferences and perceptions. Dr. Antonia Mantonakis, an associate marketing professor and consumer psychologist from the university's school of business, and Dr. Isabelle Lesschaeve, sensory scientist who recently was nominated as a fellow of the Ontario Hostelry Institute, are leading the new program, which aims to uncover what motivates consumers to choose, buy and drink certain wines.

Cornell has announced plans to launch a 2,400-square-foot teaching winery at the Cornell Orchards this fall to enhance the education of tomorrow's enologists and viticulturists.

The maximum quantity of ice wine in Canada is produced in Niagara Peninsula. It has two institutes that impart courses in the fields of oenology and viticulture - Brock University's The Cool Climate Oenology and Viticulture Institute (CCOVI) and Niagara College.

Napa's Far Niente floats solar panels on irrigation pond to avoid removing vines.

Financier says hundreds will put vineyards on the block soon and early sellers will get best prices.

Parducci Wine Cellars, the nation's first carbon neutral winery, announces the company's conversion to 100% solar and wind power.

Benjamin Bridge's high aspirations for Gaspereau Valley, Nova Scotia include a broad canvas of wines, a from scratch wine production facility, and more grape planting.

Imagine Average Joe wine consumer walking into his local LCBO store and asking for a bottle of Niagara Peninsula Chardonnay. Or a Pinot Noir wine from Prince Edward County, near Kingston. Perhaps he's craving a Gewurztraminer from Pelee Island or a Merlot from Lake Erie North Shore. Before, Joe would ask for an Ontario or Vintners Quality Alliance wine. Now, he's picking up a bottle based on Ontario's four wine appellations - indicating the place where grapes for a wine were grown.

The premise of the 100-mile diet is to eat foods from your local area. If one is promoting a 100-mile diet, complete with its environmental benefits, it only makes sense to support that effort with the further promotion of food and drink from within the 100-mile radius. In its latest Enviro Chic campaign, the LCBO has not. A two-page spread in a recent LCBO flyer pushing environmentally-friendly products features two types of wine. One is a tetra pak of 20 Bees, a VQA wine made by the former Niagara Vintners Inc. We know that wine, by its VQA designation, was made solely with grapes grown in Ontario.

A new system of evaluating the tourism experience at Ontario wineries could do for tasting bars what the Vintners Quality Alliance of Ontario did for wine quality, a Niagara winery owner says. Allan Schmidt, president of Vineland Estates Winery, said a new winery inspection program spearheaded by the Wine Council of Ontario might help encourage some lax establishments to clean up their hospitality act.

The tiny Swiss village of Champagne on Thursday blasted "French imperialism" after a Paris court ruled they could not use the name of their village for locally-produced wine and biscuits.

The replacement of wooden barrels with alternative wood products, regardless of which kind, all have the same shortcoming, namely that unlike barrels, they do not make provision for slow oxygen uptake and consequently only enable the extraction of wood character. Micro-oxygenation addresses this shortcoming and will be discussed in a series of articles.

Ex Nihilo Vineyards to sell Sympathy for the Devil product after reaching deal with iconic band

As buyers and critics took part in last week's tastings of a difficult-to-grow 2007 vintage in Bordeaux, producers agreed that modern techniques were changing winemaking. Ten, 20 or 30 years ago this vintage would probably have been a write-off.

Five new grape rootstocks that are resistant to nematodes and phylloxera -- two of the most damaging vineyard pests -- were recently released for distribution to commercial nurseries by UC Davis.

Antioxidant-rich red wine and tea could help regulate blood sugar levels in diabetics, suggests a new study from the University of Massachusetts.

Niagara's MPPs have to be the frontrunners in this challenge. The Wine Council of Ontario, through the wine secretariat and St. Catharines MPP Jim Bradley, has launched a challenge to all members of the provincial legislature to get more VQA products on the wine lists of Ontario restaurants. The winner will be the MPP with the most restaurants in his or her riding that have been recognized by the Wine Council for their promotion and sale of 100 per cent Ontario wines.

Judging for the 2008 Ontario Wine Awards took place over the past two Saturdays in Toronto. Teams of Ontario sommeliers and wine writers, including myself, combed through a record number of entries, some 480-plus wines, in search of the best bottles. Panels tasted blind with no knowledge of who the producer was or what wine region the grapes were sourced from. We were only informed the type or style of wine (i.e. oak-aged Chardonnay priced at over $20) and the vintage. That way judges could set aside any preconceived notions and simply address the quality of the wines in the glass.

The proof of what many call the best vintage of the decade for Ontario wineries is in the bottle. And the 2007 bottles are starting to appear on shelves. Some of the first were recently released at Beamsville's Malivoire Wine Company Ltd. In some ways, 2007 was a tough year. In the case of Malivoire, which does not have irrigated vineyards, the hot weather stressed out vines and cut production to about 7,000 cases (12 bottles per case) from an average 10,000 last year.

The gauntlet - or in this case, the corkscrew - has been thrown down. Provincial politicians have been challenged to boost the sale of 100 per cent Ontario VQA wines by restaurants in their ridings. Bragging rights and an award will go to the MPP whose riding has the most restaurants honoured by the Wine Council of Ontario for showcasing VQA wines.

"Read the article" to watch "Wine Confidential", which originally aired on March 20, 2008, on the CBC.

Rapper Jay-Z used to routinely sip $300-a-bottle Cristal, a well-known French Champagne, in his hip-hop videos. Director Sofia Coppola hawks her own line of sparkling wine in a pop can, sold to the upper-class crowds at the toniest clubs in Las Vegas and Miami. Sparkling wine is seeping into youth pop culture, but is it enough to whet the palates of Generation Y? Brock University associate marketing professor Carman Cullen hopes to find out more about the fickle taste of 19- to 30-year-olds, who represent major buying power. Starting in May, Cullen and Brock wine professor Gary Pickering, who studies taste perception, will run focus groups to find out why young people do or do not drink bubbly. "We're going to get Gen Y's attitudes. Their liking. Their disliking for these wines," Cullen said Tuesday morning during the regular guest speaker series at Brock's Cool Climate Oenology and Viticulture Institute.

Pascal Madevon says he was struck hard by his first impression of winemaking in the Okanagan Valley. "I knew I had a lot of work to do," recalls the Bordeaux-trained winemaker who travelled to British Columbia for the 2001 harvest. "I had to convince my wife to move here."

Ed Madronich, a former Inniskillin Wines marketing manager who owns Flat Rock with his dad, Ed senior, says he wants people visiting his Seventh Avenue winery to do more than taste the Pinot Noir, Chardonnay, Gewurztraminer and Riesling he grows in his vineyard. "I really want to give people an experience," Madronich says at lunch. "Something they can take away with them when they come to the winery."

His schnoz is not to be sniffed at. The nose of leading European winemaker and taster Ilja Gort has been insured for euro5 million ($8 million), Lloyd's of London said Tuesday. He took out the policy after hearing about a man who lost his sense of smell in a car accident.

A number of Ontario and international wine companies have expressed interest in buying a Niagara-on-the-Lake co-operative winery that went into receivership last month. Robert Bougie, senior partner with Deloitte & Touche Inc., which is the court-appointed receiver for Niagara Vintners Inc., said many people have inquired about the company and its "state-of-the-art" 43,000-square-foot wine-production facility on Niagara Stone Road in Virgil. The company, which produced the 20 Bees wine label, is valued at $32.8 million, including cash, receivables, building, office and winery equipment, land and vineyard, according to Deloitte & Touche documents.

A $300,000 grant from the Ontario government to the Niagara Grape and Wine Festival is welcome news and should boost programming.

Binge drinkers, beware! Guzzling beer is better for brain while quaffing wine is a worry, a new study has claimed. Researchers at the University of Gottingen in Germany have found that drinking wine damages the brain more than beer or spirits -- wine actually shrinks the hippocampus, the part of the brain responsible for memory.

Green wine is catching on so quickly that an event has been created — the International Green Wine Competition for Sustainable Winemaking will be held May 5 in Santa Rosa, with the purpose of identifying outstanding wines made from certified biodynamic, certified organic and sustainably-grown grapes. They’re limiting it to 1,000 wines, and interested wineries are invited to enter wines by April 18.