Brussels | Reuters — European beer, wine and spirits makers should inform consumers about the amount of calories in their drinks via clear labelling, EU lawmakers said Wednesday. Most foods and drinks are subject to legislation mandating labels with nutritional and ingredient information, but alcoholic drinks are exempt. The European Parliament voted in favour of […] Read more
EU lawmakers urge calorie content labels to cover alcohol
China’s wine growers beat France into second place
Paris | Reuters — China overtook France last year as the world’s second largest wine grower by area under cultivation as it continued to plant vast fields of mostly imported grape vines to meet growing demand. The world’s second largest economy, which since 2013 consumes more red wine than any other country, has more than […] Read more
New chemistry launched as fruit mite control
The first member of the benzoylacetonitrile group of crop insecticides (Group 25) to come to market in North America will be a mite control for fruit crops. BASF Canada announced Tuesday it has picked up registration for Nealta, a 200-gram-per-litre suspension concentrate of cyflumetofen, billed as a control for all life stages of tetranychid mites […] Read more
Sask., B.C. reach deal on direct wine, spirits sales
Consumers in each of British Columbia and Saskatchewan may be able to order wine and craft spirits directly from the other province’s producers, starting next summer, without having to involve the Crown or third-party vendors. Saskatchewan Premier Brad Wall and B.C. Premier Christy Clark announced an agreement Friday they said will “lift barriers to consumers […] Read more
N.S. sets up wine development board
Grape growers and wine producers in Nova Scotia have got a new advisory board to bring their ideas and issues to the provincial government. The province on Tuesday named nine members, including Agriculture Minister Keith Colwell as chairman, to a new Nova Scotia Wine Development Board. Nova Scotia’s wineries sold almost $16.7 million in wine […] Read more
California wine country quake losses seen in billions
Napa, California | Reuters — A strong earthquake that jolted residents of California’s Napa Valley wine country from their beds on Sunday caused insured property damage likely in the hundreds of millions of dollars, but the region’s total economic losses will be several times that, experts said on Monday. The magnitude 6.0 quake, the biggest […] Read more
Red wine a winning investment in 20th century
London | Reuters — Forget government bonds, fine art and even stamps: red wine outperformed them all over the 20th century. At least that’s what research by a team of academics from the University of Cambridge, HEC Paris and Vanderbilt University of Nashville shows. The Warren Buffetts of the fine wine world could have earned […] Read more
U.S. becomes world’s biggest wine market as French drinkers cut down
Paris | Reuters — The United States became the world’s biggest market for wine last year, beating France into second place for the first time as consumption slides in the country long seen as its natural home and Americans develop a greater taste for it. U.S. consumers bought 29.1 million hectolitres of wine in 2013, […] Read more
New standard to define icewine in Canada
If it’s not made only with grapes naturally frozen on the vine, it can’t be called icewine. As obvious as it may seem, a new move to enshrine that notion in the federal Agricultural Products Act is expected to ease and boost exports of Canada’s most lucrative wines and weed out any pretenders claiming to […] Read more
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