Just weeks after Hong Kong scrapped a 40 percent duty on wine this year, American entrepreneur and ...

BORDEAUX, August 3, 2008 (AFP) - Known for its high-end wines, sumptuous chateaux and aristocrat vineyard-owners, Bordeaux has been strangely short of luxury tourist activities, but times finally are a-changing.

LONDON, July 28, 2008 (AFP) - The 'priceless' oldest existing bottle of Veuve Clicquot champagne, dating back more than a century, was found in a sideboard in a Scottish castle, the estate said Monday.

Owner Chris James found the 1893 bottle at Torosay Castle on the Isle of Mull, off the western Scottish mainland. It is believed to have been hidden away for more than a century.

NEURAS, July 20, 2008 (AFP) - It's not a mirage on the edge of one of the world's oldest deserts, though it may seem so at first: a lush vineyard producing wine that is worth the hot and dusty trip.

Somehow, Allan Walkden-Davis has created this oasis in the Namib desert region in the southwestern corner of Africa, one of the driest places on Earth.

WASHINGTON, July 4, 2008 (AFP) - Scientists have confirmed what many people have known for years -- that drinking red wine leads to a better life, even if that life is not necessarily longer.

MONTALCINO, July 3, 2008 (AFP) - US Ambassador to Italy Ronald Spogli on Thursday vouched for the purity of the famous Tuscan wine Brunello di Montalcino, hit by suspicions of tampering to please the American palate.

BORDEAUX, July 2, 2008 (AFP) - The Bordeayx region's St Emilion wines have been stripped of their top classifications by a French court, which Tuesday ruled that 'Grand Cru' labels should be taken off bottles.

NEW DELHI, June 10, 2008 (AFP) - Lakshmi Chand took a thoughtful sip of the ruby liquid in her glass, rolling it across her tongue as she wondered aloud: 'Doesn't it go dead on your palate?'

The 29-year-old with cropped hair was one of the more curious at a recent wine appreciation event where a group of 20 sniffed and sipped on a sultry New Delhi evening.

BORDEAUX, June 10, 2008 (AFP) - With the majority of chateaux owners refusing to cut prices by any significant amount and as demand remains soft, the 2007 Bordeaux wine 'primeurs,' or futures, campaign is being seen as a washout.

'People are turning their backs on the 2007 vintage,' said Jeffrey Davies, a Bordeaux wine merchant.

BORDEAUX, June 8, 2008 (AFP) - Lingering uncertainty over whether or not wine ads on the Internet are legal in France is angering wine professionals in Bordeaux.

'It is ridiculous not to be able to use the Internet, the law must be adapted,' said Alain Vironneau, president of the Bordeaux Wine Board (the Conseil Interprofessionnel du Vin de Bordeaux, or CIVB).