South East Australia is a geographical indication (GI) covering the entire south-eastern third of Australia. The western boundary of this area extends 2,000 kilometres (1,250 miles) across the Australian continent from the Pacific coast of Queensland to the Southern Ocean coast of South Australia. This vast wine 'super zone' effectively encompasses all the major Australian wine regions outside Western Australia. Rainforest, mountain ranges, scrubland, desert and Dry riverbeds occupy the majority of the land in the South East Australian area.
Only in the cooler coastal areas do vineyards play a significant role in the landscape. The GI covers the states of New South Wales, Victoria and Tasmania in their entirety, as well as the south-eastern halves of Queensland and South Australia. The sheer Size of this area - and the diversity of its climates, topography and latitudes - makes it a GI of rather limited significance. Even the largest AVAs in the United States do not represent half of the area called South Eastern Australia.
Franzese was known as the ‘yuppie don’ in the 1980s after rising to the rank of caporegime in the Colombo crime family. Fortune Magazine placed him at No. 18 on its 50 Biggest Mafia Bosses list, and he gained a reputation as one of the mob’s biggest earners since Al Capone. He was portrayed by Joseph Bono in Goodfellas. Franzese became a born-again Christian during a lengthy prison sentence for racketeering, and he managed to walk away from the mafia without going into protective custody. He is ...
A magnum of Lafite Rothschild 1887 sold for £22,500 ($28,300) at a Sotheby’s auction of ‘vinous treasures’ spanning nearly 200 years. The wine, held in storage with Octavian group in Wiltshire, had a pre-sale high estimate of £18,000. A single bottle of Château d’Yquem 1831 sold for £27,500 (pre-sale high estimate: £20,000). Another bottle of Yquem, from the 1896 vintage, sold for £15,000, tripling its pre-sale high estimate. ‘An extraordinary wine from a very great Sauternes vintage,’ said Sere ...
There’s been a focus on making wine production less energy intensive as well as environmentally friendly in order to address climate change. The efforts continue but, as is the case for electric cars where it’s the battery technology that needs innovating, it’s in wine bottles where we’re seeing rapid change. It comes in a two-pronged attack to reduce energy use in manufacturing and then an even bigger emphasis on reducing bottle weight for shipping to reduce fuel usage and thus CO2 production. ...