MEDIA RELEASE
7 December 2010	Embargoed 11.30am Canberra time	157/2010

Last financial year saw another decrease in wine production, according to figures released today by the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS).

The total grape crush for 2009-10 was 1.6 million tonnes, down by 7.5% on the previous year. The area of bearing vines fell to 152 thousand hectares and the yield dropped to 10.1 tonnes per hectare. The crush produced 1.1 billion litres of beverage wine, down by 3.4% on last years figure.

Red/rosé wine production was 613 million litres (down 1.7%) and white wine accounted for 498 million litres (down 7.4%).

Exports of Australian produced wine rose 4.8% (to 789 million litres) and domestic sales rose 4.7% to 471 million litres.

Inventories fell to 1.7 billion litres (down 8.3%). Red/rosé table wine stocks of 961 million litres still represent more than half of the beverage wine stock held by winemakers.

The 13 largest winemakers crushed a total of 1.2 million tonnes of grapes or 72% of the total crush. These 13 businesses averaged 89 thousand tonnes each. Conversely, the 95 smallest winemakers accounted for only 0.7% of all grapes crushed and averaged 120 tonnes each.

A third of all winemaking locations were in South Australia, accounting for 43% of the national wine grape crush.

Further information is in Australian Wine and Grape Industry (cat. no. 1329.0) available free of charge from the ABS website <www.abs.gov.au>.

Media Note:

When reporting ABS data you must attribute the Australian Bureau of Statistics (or the ABS) as the source.