Paul Clancy responds to wine industry veteran Alistair Purbrick’s declaration that Australia needs to reduce its vineyards by 25-30 percent.
The irony of Alister Purbrick’s declaration that the industry does not need 25-30 percent of its vineyard to address its crisis is high irony at its best.
Purbrick’s latter day conversion on the road to Damascus is hardly breaking news.
He’s 16 years late to the party.
Last year WBM published the Chifley Report which Chris Byrne and I wrote in 2009.
The 13-page document was an exhaustive and meticulously researched paper (titled Australian Wine Industry Winegrape Oversupply – Structural Adjustment Wine and Grape Sector Collaborative Response).
It was published by Winegrape Council of SA following a meeting of grower leaders from around the country.
The paper stated: “The Australian wine industry is severely affected by an over-planted national vineyard and a consequential oversupply of winegrapes – it can produce 2 million tonnes of winegrapes but only 1.5 million tonnes is needed to meet current export and domestic sales and to provide for short term projected growth.
“In other words the industry is oversupplied by about 30 percent. In vineyard terms this translates to around 40,000 hectares of vineyard excess over demand.”
The paper was presented to the Winemakers’ Federation never to be heard from again.
That 16 years ago the 30 percent over-planted vineyard was identified and a grower effort made to seek a collaborative response from the wine sector – including detailed strategies – was rejected, beggars belief and is illustrative of the poor leadership and strategic thinking and response to a looming crisis obvious to everyone but winemakers, it seems.
As for the commonly held misconception that this is a an inland irrigated growers problem, those who hold that view ought to do their homework.
They should look at the bulk wine market and note which regions dominate the lists and the fire sale prices.
The so-called premium regions far outweigh the inland regions numerically and by volume.
It’s a tragic reality of the crisis of oversupply that so much quality wine is being offered for sale at such low prices.
The damage is universal across all regions but it’s the premium, ‘cool’ regions which by far and away are the victims of the oversupply.
Last year, Alister Purbrick proffered his opinion that the inland regions could not produce wine of the quality of their international competitors.
That was disingenuous and not born out by the fact that Australia’s total wine exports is largely (by a very big margin) made up of the wine he has such a low opinion of.
As the crisis worsens, unaddressed, it will be the so-called premium winegrowers who will be crushed by rising cost of production and diminishing grape prices while the inland growers will fare better because of their lower cost of production and their ability to supply the market at the commercial price points consumers demand.
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