The amazing growth of the Australian wine exporting industry.

Australian wine has a very successful export history. Each year the Australian Bureau of Statistics publish the annual exports of Australian produced wine which show there has been strong growth over a long period of years. Between 1991-92 and 2006-07 exports of Australian wine increased every year except from a small fall in 1994-95. The 1992-93 financial year saw Australia export more than 100 million litres of wine for the first time. Six years later in the 1998-99 financial year, wine exports exceeded 200 million litres of wine for the first time. From this period wine exports grew rapidly, with more than 300 million litres of wine sold to overseas markets during 2000-01, reaching a total export volume of 787.1 million litres in 2006-07. The volume of Australian made wine exported in 2006-07 was 9.3% more than the volume in 2005-06. Further, this export volume for 2006-07 was more than double the volume in 2000-01 and ten times the amount exported in 1991-92.

The export figures are broken down into white wine and red/rosé wine. In July 2007 76.9 million litres of Australian produced wine were exported. This comprised 26.5 million litres of Australian produced white table wine and 48.7 million litres of red and rosé table wine. Total wine exports in July 2007 were 24.1% higher than wine exports in July 2006, with exports of white increasing by 14% and red/ rosé exports increasing by 30.8% over July 2006. Exports of red/ rosé wines are consistently higher than exports of white wine.

The 76.9 million litres of wine exported in July 2007 were valued at $282million, and the average value of wine exports was $3.67 per litre. The price per litre can fluctuate quite a lot as it can depend on the value of the Australian dollar and whether surplus wine is being sold.

The Australian Wine and Brandy Corporation regularly publish figures on where Australian wine is exported to, and there is a trend to the United States becoming more important as an export destination. Back in July of 1999, when total export sales first reached $1 billion, the UK dominated our export trade to such an extent that the second-placed US accounted for less than half the UK value and fourth-placed Canada was barely 11%. By July 2002 the US had grown to more than two-thirds of the UK total and Canada had moved firmly into third spot. By July 2007 the US was just behind the UK and Canada had reached 28% of the UK total. Also of note was the small but increasingly important Chinese market, where bottled wine sales grew 174% on the previous year.

Wine is exported as bottled wine and as bulk wine. There has been strong growth in bulk wine shipments over recent years, but recently this has stopped and there has been a shift back to bottled sales with bottled reds being the star performers. Indications are that consumers are looking for higher quality Australian wine , and this is great news for our wine export industry.

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