Winemakers

China has the world's second-largest grape growing area, but experts say its winemakers need to innovate rather than imitate established European or New World regions if they are ever to join their ranks.

"This isn't so much a harvest, as a hunt for grapes," said French winemaker Jean-Jacques Robert, with a rueful laugh as he unloaded grapes still warm from his vineyards around Fuisse in Burgundy.

Amid the numerous challenges that the winemakers face in France's famed Beaujolais wine-making region, their biggest threat now is climate change.

Winemaker Charlie Holland's love for the wine began in an Australian vineyard. Now he coaxes quality grapes from Kentish soilsI fell into winemaking: less in a drunken stupor, more in love. Working in a winery ...

Three cheers for wine lovers out there. Here comes a new machine that can turn water, grape concentrate, yeast and a finishing powder into wine right in your kitchens in just three days!Developed by wine ...

Modern winemaking has become a highly industrialised process but a growing band of producers are going back to basics. The resulting wine is shocking: vibrant, earthy and alive.

China now has the second-largest wine-growing area in the world after Spain, pushing France into third place, according to figures released by the International Organisation of Vine and Wine (IOVW).

Being a winemaker is a specialized calling, requiring intimate knowledge of soil composition, seasons and weather, chemistry, flavour, even marketing and sales.

Winemakers in Bordeaux, cheered by last year's ideal growing conditions, have said they expected 2015 to be a "magnificent" vintage.