WCA Update: 23 December 2016

Dear Wine Communicators of Australia Members,

On behalf of Wine Communicators Australia Board and Committee members, I just wanted to take this opportunity to wish you all the best for Christmas and a great year ahead.
 
2016 has been a really strong year for the WCA with strong national and state boards, a new Executive Officer who is doing a great job and a number of really successful events as well as our program of Webinars.

To finish the year, we had an outstanding Wine Communicators of the year Awards, and congratulations to all the nominee’s and winners including the big winner, Gourmet Traveller WINE Magazine. I am also very proud of the three new Legend of the Vines that were announced in 2016, Iain Riggs in New South Wales, d’Arry Osborn in South Australia and Kathleen Quealy in Victoria.
 
We have worked hard to get where we are and in 2017 we will continued to strive to provide relevance and value to our members. I believe we are well placed to achieve this.

I hope that you all have a great break (if that is what you have planned) and that you get some down time with those nearest and dearest.

I look forward to seeing you in 2017.
 
Cheers for now,
Angus Barnes
WCA Chair
 
WCA closure
The team at WCA will be taking a short break over Christmas so this is the final WCA Update for 2016.  The next newsletter will be released 13th January 2017.  We wish you all a safe and happy Festive Season.

Industry news
Wine Australia's released their latest report offering insights on the Australia sparkling wine market and can be found here.

Country News announced the Federal Government is encouraging the region’s producers to jump aboard the export bandwagon for the economic benefit of the country, as well as individual business profitability. Read more here.

Invest in Australia reported the food and wine industry is booming with 3400 new jobs and $18.6 billion in revenue in the past year.  Read full article here.

Mastermind Consulting have some great tips to keep your Social Media presence front of mind during the festive season.  Click here to read more.

If you're looking for something special to put on the table this Christmas, take a look at Wine Arks list of back vintage specials here. You will need to be quick.

Milton Wordley is offering a great special to subscribers for his book "A year in the life of Grange", plus $60 on each purchase is donated to the Prostate Cancer Foundation.  What a great Christmas present this could make for yourself.  More details here.

Other articles of interest
Here are a few interesting articles we found online:
Wet winter has Australian wine regions in good shape for strong 2017 vintage (theleadsouthaustralia.com.au)
The wines Australians have been collecting in 2016 (businessinsider.com.au)
Turning price theory upside down (wine-searcher.com)
Why do we celebrate with bubbles? (wine-searcher.com)
Rabobank report:  Chinese open arms to Australian wine (theweeklytimes.com.au)
New focus on organic wines and bar trends at Prowein (thedrinksbusiness.com)

Industry events
The Cape Jaffa Seafood and Wine Festival is a free event for visitors of all ages. Apart from providing visitors with scrumptious food, the festival offers an authentic range of wines and live music shows exclusively for those attending the festival.  January 15th 2017, more details here.

If you love good food and wine, you won’t be disappointed by the Gold Coast Food & Wine Expo, 20th - 22nd January 2017.  More details here.