Wine glut no surprise

THE number of Australian and New Zealand wine producers has surpassed the 3000 mark for the first time, according to the 29th annual Australian and New Zealand Wine Industry Directory recently published by Winetitles.

There are 2477 wine-producing companies in Australia and 531 in New Zealand.

Despite the well-known industry difficulties in both countries, about one quarter of the companies were formed during the past decade with 57 new producers in Australia and nine in New Zealand coming online during 2010.

In Australia, the number of producers listed in the directory has almost doubled every decade. In 1990 there were 620. By 2000 there were 1197 and during the next 10 years an average of 116 new producers was established each year to reach a total of 2477 last year.

Little wonder there's been a wine glut.

At a time when a survey by the Wine Grape Council of South Australia showed that two-thirds of the state's 2009 wine grapes sold below the cost of production and recommended that unprofitable growers should pull out their vines, that state had the highest net gain in 2010 with the establishment of 19 new companies bringing their total to 667.

The directory says Victoria has the highest number of listed producers, with 738 while Western Australia has 382, Queensland has 111 and Tasmania has 104. While the directory tallies wine producers, the online industry site, Vinefinders, counts vineyards. According to its 2009 figures the states' total number of vineyards, as opposed to wine producers are Victoria (1903), SA (1031), NSW (981), WA (719), Tasmania (352) and Queensland (191) so the national total is 5177.

Vinefinders says these figures are not an accurate count of the mass of vineyards in the Riverland, Sunraysia and Riverina regions, and despite some larger producers grubbing up vines in the past two years, many new smaller vineyards have been established.

This trend towards an industry composed of increasing numbers of smaller vineyards is supported by the directory, which found that 21 of the 57 new producers in 2010 crush less than 10 tonnes. Across the industry, 90 per cent of producers crush less than 500 tonnes; nearly three quarters less than 100 tonnes; while the greatest number of producers (527) crush between 20 and 49 tonnes; and more than a third crush less than 20 tonnes.

In Tasmania, 93.3 per cent of producers are small operations, crushing less than 500 tonnes, the highest percentage of all the states.

The directory figures also show that more companies are producing sparkling wines, fewer are producing fortifieds and 140 are producing certified organic wine up from 66 in 2004.

Most of the above information is extracted from the directory's industry overview, which I thought might be of interest to the general reader. For those in the industry, the directory includes a complete listing of wine producers, suppliers, distributors, retailers, wine writers, wine publications, organisations, events, wine shows, wine courses and industry personnel.