According to the recently published 28th annual Australian and New Zealand Wine Industry Directory, there are now 2420 wine producing companies in Australia.
Published by Winetitles, the 2010 Directory shows the number of Australian wine producers continues to grow despite calls for a downsizing of the industry and nearly two billion litres of wine in inventory.
Directory editor Michael Major says listings of wine companies in the 2010 Directory showed a net gain of 100 Australian wine producers and eight New Zealand producers, accounting for closures and mergers.
“There has been no slowdown in the number of new producers entering the wine industry,” he said.
“In fact, the rate of growth in the past decade has been similar to the rate during the 1990s when there seemed to be no ceiling to the growth of the industry.
“About one quarter of the existing companies were formed since 2000, with the number of listed companies doubling every decade.”
Major says there were 620 companies listed in 1990, which doubled to 1197 in 2000 and again to 2420 in 2010.
This equates to an average net gain of 122 wine producers per year.
South Australia recorded the highest number of new producers, adding 28 since 2009 to reach 648 in 2010.
Victoria grew 3.7%, adding 26 new producers to reach 724, giving Victoria the greatest number of wine producers listed in the 2010 Directory.
Tasmania added six producers (6.5%) and now has 98 companies, while Western Australia added 11 to reach 372.
Both NSW/ACT and Queensland showed growth and gained 24 and five companies respectively.
Nearly three quarters (72.6%) of the Australian companies listed crush less crush less than 100 tonnes.
This percentage has grown since 1998 when 65.9% crushed less than 100t.
There was a substantial growth (12.3%) in producers crushing less than 10t, with 48 of the 100 new companies listed in this category.
Nearly all wine companies produce table wine while less than 30% produce fortified wine.
The number of companies producing sparkling wine has risen rapidly from 26.8% in 2004 to 35.2% in 2010.
There are 127 Australian producers (5.2%) producing organic wine to certified standards, up from 66 in the 2004 Directory.
The 2010 Industry Directory lists 1230 producers that export wine, down from 1310 in 2009 and representing 51% of all producers.
Constellation Wines remains the largest wine company when ranked by winegrape intake, total wine production and exports of branded wine by volume.
Foster’s Group leads in exports of branded wine by value and vineyard area.
The 2010 edition of the Wine Industry Directory lists 522 wine producers in New Zealand, up eight producers (1.6%) from 514 wine producers in 2009.
The majority – 60% of New Zealand producers – crush less than 100t while almost half (46%) crush less than 50t.
The 528-page 2010 Australian and New Zealand Wine Industry Directory includes a complete listing of wine producers, suppliers, distributors, retailers, writers, wine publications, organisations, events, wineshows and industry personnel.
It also features a comprehensive overview of the Australian and New Zealand wine industries, including statistics and descriptions of the main industry regulating bodies.
NEW for 2010
“Winetitles is continually striving to make the Directory a truly multi-media directory by integrating it more with Winebiz, the leading wine industry portal website,” said Major.
“This year we expanded the online Australian wine search engine so that website visitors can filter down the 2420 producers, using a number of different criteria.”
Purchasers of the Directory can gain access to the search facility using an online access code supplied in their Directory.
The Directory has also introduced a new list of university and TAFE courses in the calendar section this year that work with oenology and viticulture.
Visit the Winebiz calendar (www.winebiz.com.au/calendar) to view up-to-date course, wine show, trade show and industry event information.
The Directory is available from Winetitles for A$123.75 in Australia, A$125.00 in New Zealand and A$147.50 overseas. (All prices include postage and include the accompanying CD-ROM.)
For details, contact Winetitles by telephone (08) 8369 9500, fax (08) 8369 9501, e-mail orders@winetitles.com.au or online at http://www.winebiz.com.au
