Wine Industry Statistics - Wine Producers

Australian Wine Producers

• Number of Australian wine producers by state
• Number of Australian wine producers by tonnes crushed
• Number of Australian wine producers by tonnes crushed, by state
• Establishment dates of wine companies
• Australia's oldest wine companies or continuously operating brands
• Number of cellar doors by state and percent of state total
• The wine producers in numbers
• Australia's largest wine companies by winegrape intake
• Australia's largest wine companies by total wine production
• Australia's largest wine producers by sales of branded wine
• The top wine producers by vineyard hectareage
• The largest wine processing facilities

Wine Producers

This edition of the Wine Industry Directory lists 2,420 companies who commercially sell their wine (Table 20), a net gain of 100 producers and growth of 4.3% since the previous edition (2,320). The number of companies listed has doubled every decade. The number of companies in 1990 (620) doubled by 2000 (1,197) which doubled again in 2010 (2,420). While the rate of growth is slowing, in the past 10 years the Directory has seen an average net gain of 122 wine producers per year.

South Australia recorded the highest number of new producers adding 28 to their 2009 tally of 620 to reach 648 in 2010; Victoria grew 3.7% adding 26 new producers to their 2009 tally of 698 to reach 724, giving Victoria the greatest number of wine producers listed in the 2010 Directory (Table 20). Tasmania added 6 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 5 companies respectively.

Nearly three quarters (72.6%) of the companies of the companies who provided tonnage figures crush less crush less than 100 tonnes (Table 21). This percentage has grown since 1998 when 65.9% crushed less than 100 tonnes. The greatest number of producers (515) crush between 20 and 49 tonnes. There was substantial growth (12.3%) in producers crushing less than 10 tonnes as 48 of the 100 new companies listed are in this category. Now 34.4% of all producers reporting tonnage figures crush less than 20 tonnes while 90.4% crush less than 500 tonnes.

Tasmania has the largest percentage of small wine companies crushing less than 500 tonnes with 93.9% of companies while South Australia has the lowest percentage under 500 tonnes with 80.7% (Table 22).

The majority of wine companies (67.8%) were established after 1990 (Table 23) yet several wine companies and brands have been in business for 150 years or longer (Table 24).

The number of wine companies with a cellar door rose from 1,614 in 2009 to 1,647 in 2010 (Table 25). This reversed a trend from last year which saw a decrease in cellar door numbers. All States showed a gain in number of cellar doors. Just under 70% of all companies have a cellar door. South Australia has the lowest percentage of wine companies with a cellar door at 53.7%, while Queensland has the highest percentage with 84.7% of its wine companies having cellar door facilities.

Nearly all wine companies produce table wine while less than 30% produce fortified wine (Table 26). The number of companies producing sparkling wine has been rising rapidly from 26.8% in 2004 to 35.2% now. There are 127 Australian producers (5.2%) going green, producing organic wine to certified standards up from 66 in the 2004 Directory. The 2010 Wine Industry Directory lists 1,230 producers that export wine, down from 1,310 in 2009 and representing 51% of all producers.

Australian wine producers advised the Directory they used 137 winegrape varieties to produce straight varietal or blended wines (Table 27). Some of the new varieties entering the list are Aranel, Aucerot, Brachetto, Burger, Caverdella, Flora, Gruner Veltliner, Malian, Montils and Nero d'Avola. Savagnin was added to the list this year although 30 producers claim to be using Albariño grapes. Shiraz is the most common variety being made as a straight varietal wine or blended with 80% of producers listing it, followed by Cabernet Sauvignon with 70% and Chardonnay with 68%. There are 38 new Sauvignon Blanc producers this year, up to 1,019.

Tempranillo continues to be one of the fastest growing major varieties. There were 261 producers indicating they made a straight or blended wine with Tempranillo in this edition of the Directory, up from 198 in 2008. Other varietals to show growth included Nebbiolo (up 10%), Barbera (up 13%) and Colombard (up 10%). None of the major varieties showed reductions.

The top five wine companies accounted for about 56% of the national crush in 2009 while the top 20 companies accounted for 77% (Table 28).

Constellation Wines Australia and Foster's Group accounted for about 50% of the wine produced in 2009 (Table 29).

Foster's Group and Constellation Wines Australia alone account for about 45% of all branded wine sales while the top 20 account for almost 90% of total sales (Table 30). The remaining 2,400 companies compete for 10% of sales.

Foster's Group is the largest wine producer by vineyard area (Table 31). Constellation Wines Australia's Berri Estates Winery remains the country's largest wine processing facility (Table 32).