The huge Mendocino fire has ravaged Lake County, but it appears to have all but missed the vineyards.

Lake County grapegrowers would like you to know that, after a brush with the largest wildfire in California history, they are back on the job and the grapevines are too.

The cream of California's crop is increasingly attracting collectors from outside of the US, according to fine wine trading platform Liv-ex, which has launched a US-specific index.

"Traditionally, it's been a region that has been overlooked by non-US based collectors. I imagine most rare and old Napa remains within the US," says Liv-ex Research Analyst Edward Jackson.

Winemakers in Alsace may struggle to harvest their crops this year as an early season means the temporary workers on which they usually rely are not yet available.

China is set to outpace much of the rest of the world by 2020 and become the world’s second-largest wine market. And a key driving force behind that may be e-commerce.

With China set to out-drink the majority of the world by 2020 and online shopping habits becoming an increasingly important factor for businesses to consider, one could justifiably wonder whether the future of wine is coded within an Eastern IP address.

French wine scientists have come up with four revolutionary supergrape varieties they say are impervious to rot and thus require almost no pesticides.

But purists have warned that the lab-grown creations, which mix grape genes from around the world, could lead to dumbed-down, low-grade “Frankenstein” wine for future generations.