• Better living through currency hedging: Or, to put it in English, the Australian company that owns YellowTail made more money betting on the price of the Aussie dollar in fiscal 2011 than it did by selling YellowTail. In fact, reports the Australian Financial Review, the company is so concerned about the strong dollar that it's considering a price increase. The Australian dollar was worth about 50 cents U.S. a couple of years ago, but has been at parity for the last year or so. YellowTail sells about two-thirds of its wine in the U.S.
• Damn the recession, full speed ahead: The number of U.S. wineries grew six percent last year, which is kind of hard to believe given how much whining we heard from the wine business during the recession. Nine states that aren't California, Washington and Oregon had more than 100 wineries, reported Wines & Vines magazine as part of its annual study. These included Ohio and Illinois, hardly considered wine country. But, as the magazine noted, "many states are now making excellent wines and have developed regional, if not national, customer followings." Now, if we can only get the magazine to send someone to the DrinkLocalWine conference.
• A life sentence: That will teach you to cheat the Chinese liquor cops. Reports Decanter magazine: A Chinese man has been given a life sentence for illegally importing more than $7 million of fine wine into China. He altered the name, details and price of high-end wines imported from France, Britain and Hong Kong, stating they were cheap alcohol, the court said. It is not clear which wines were imported, although one report said there were large amounts of Chateau Lafite, Latour and other blue-chip wines.
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