Words by Harrison Davies

Winegrape growers in Australia’s inland regions are considering leaving up to 40 per cent of their red grapes on the vine in the 2023 vintage due to a lack of demand following the closure of the bulk wine market in China.

A meeting between Accolade wines and the CCW Riverland based CCW co-op a grower run grape cooperative, summarized the dire situation faced by growers.

“The last two years have brought significant challenges to the wine industry in Australia, ongoing supply chain challenges, increased cost of goods, change in consumer taste, tariffs and the pandemic have had a significant impact,” Accolade chief supply chain officer Derek Nicol said.

“Australian wine is still uncompetitive in the global bulk wine market. Shipping, inflation and on-costs continue to have a serious impact so this makes us uncompetitive against other key countries of origin like Chile and South Africa.

“Also overall global wine consumption is still in decline so we need to address the Australian surplus.”

In an interview with The Weekly Times, Australian Grape & Wine chief executive Tony Battaglene said such action could reduce the national red grape crush by roughly 200,000 tonnes.

“The general trend appears to be about 40 per cent less reds than last year is the number people think they will need because there is a lot f product in the tank at the moment and they cannot send it offshore,” he said.

“There is going to be a lot of pain.”

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