MEDIA RELEASE
January 29, 2008	Embargoed 11.30 am (AEDT)	6/2008
Wine production down, sales up: ABS

The 2006-07 year was one of mixed fortunes for the wine industry, according to figures released today by the Australian Bureau of Statistics.

The total grape crush for 2006-07 came in at 1.4 million tonnes, half a million tonnes less than 2005-06. This produced 978 million litres of wine, down by nearly a third (32%).

Wine production for both red and white wines fell during the year - red/rosé wine went down by 39% (to 472 million litres), and white wine fell 24% (475 million litres).

Australian wine exports continued to increase, reaching 787 million litres (up 9%) for a total value of $2.9 billion (up 4%).

However the average price per litre dropped from $3.82 in 2005-06 to $3.66 in 2006-07.

Sales to the United Kingdom accounted for just over one third (34% or 269 million litres) of all wine exports by volume; in total, the European Union market imported 416 million litres of wine, followed by North America, with 262 million litres.

Domestic wine sales also increased, with a total volume of 449 million litres (up 4%).

The combination of reduced production and increased sales has caused the inventories of table wine to fall 15% from last year's high (2.1 billion litres) to 1.8 billion litres.

There were 13 winemakers that crushed more than 20,000 tonnes of grapes each, accounting for a total of 1.03 million tonnes of grapes or nearly three-quarters (74%) of the national crush. At the other end of the scale, there were 199 small winemakers with a crush between 50 and 400 tonnes.

Over 30% of all winemaking locations were in South Australia and these accounted for 43% of the national wine grape crush.

Despite poor climatic conditions, the area of vines under cultivation increased again, to 173,776 hectares (up 3%).

There were 8,041 vineyards in Australia, and nearly all (84%) were irrigated. The most common watering method continues to be drip or micro spray irrigation and the national average usage of irrigated water was 3.4 megalitres per hectare.

Further information is in Australian Wine and Grape Industry(cat. no. 1329.0).