Australia’s wine vintage drops to 20-year low sparking fears of earnings hit for growers

Australia’s latest wine harvest has shrunk to its lowest levels in more than 20 years, latest figures show, sparking fears the massive drop could hit the profits of growers around the country. The 2023 Australian wine grape vintage was estimated to be 1.32 million tonnes, 26 per cent below the 10-year average and the lowest recorded since 2000, according to a new report released by industry body Wine Australia on Tuesday. Australia’s winegrape harvest period usually runs from January through to mid-April, although timings could differ depending on the weather. Wine Australia market insights manager Peter Bailey said the second consecutive smaller vintage would have direct impact on grape and wine businesses. “This smaller vintage, which will reduce the wine available for sale by around 325 million litres, is likely to have a considerable impact on the bottom line of grape and wine businesses all around Australia, at a time when the costs of inputs, energy, labour and transport have increased significantly,” he said. Peter Garbin, owner of Garbin Estate Wines in the Swan Valley, said while his punnets “might have been a little bit down” over the period, he was optimistic for the future given the region did not usually experience adverse weather conditions. “We don’t really experience heavy rains here in the Swan Valley region during harvest so we don’t expect to see too much disease-affected grapes,” he said. Wine Australia said the third consecutive La Nina weather event produced wet and cool conditions, which led to lower yields and delayed ripening in some regions across the country. However, the cool season “was conducive to producing high quality fruit with excellent flavour development.” Mr Garbin agreed and said WA drinkers could expect to see “very, very impressive wines” from this year’s vintage. “Here in WA, our (latest) vintage was relatively cool at the beginning,” he said. He added his main concerns was around China’s crippling trade tariffs on Australian wine exports. Beijing in late 2020 imposed tariffs of as much as 218 per cent on Australian wines. “We’re looking to try and get into other market but that’s not an overnight success, that’s a long-term project to find new markets,” Mr Garbin said. The Wine Australia report also revealed the crush of red grapes in 2023 was estimated to be 711,777 tonnes — down 26 per cent compared with 2022 and 25 per cent below the 10-year average (943,146 tonnes). The white crush was about 605,321 tonnes, which was a decrease of 22 per cent compared with 2022 and 28 per cent below its 10-year average of 839,013 tonnes. South Australia retained its position as the largest contributor to the crush, with a 55 per cent share of the total, despite its second-smallest crush since 2007. NSW was the second largest with 27 per cent of the crush, followed by Victoria (13 per cent). Wine Australia said West Australia had an overall “very good season”, increasing its share to 3.5 per cent. Tasmania and Queensland each accounted for slightly less than 1 per cent.