Italy top wine exporter to Germany

Wiesbaden, Germany - Italy remained the top exporter of wine to Germany in 2007 amid increasing competition from Chile and South Africa, the Federal Statistics Office said Friday. Some 507 million litres of the 1.3 billion litres of wine imported by Germany last year came from Italy, 2.5 per cent less than 2006, the statistics office said. The total value of the imported wine was 1.5 billion euros (2.25 billion dollars), of which 543 million euros went to Italian producers.

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Grappling for the grapes

The oak-studded grasslands and lush rolling hills that make up the 21,000-acre winery and ranch near California's storied Napa Valley is the unlikely target of one of most heated boardroom battles in Hawai'i.

For more than a year, the fight for the control of the closely held Langtry Estate & Vineyards, Guenoc wine label and its Hawai'i-based owner Malulani Investments Ltd. has played out in courts in Honolulu and Los Angeles, pitting several kama'aina investors against a scion of the Magoon family, which started the winery more than a quarter of a century ago.

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