The number of Western Australian wine businesses continues to grow in line with the national trend, but the state’s wine industry still remains boutique, according to new figures.
The number of Western Australian wine businesses continues to grow in line with the national trend, but the state’s wine industry still remains boutique, according to new figures.
Statistics from Winebiz show that a total of 196 wineries were started in WA in the past ten years, a rise of 122 per cent comparing with the national trend of 130 per cent over the same period.
The number of WA wine producers has grown by 7.22 per cent over the past year to 356 wineries.
Australia has a total of 2,299 wine businesses, of which 15 per cent are based in WA.
The number of Victorian wine producers grew by 9.4 per cent in 2007 to 687, giving Victoria the greatest number of wine producers, with South Australia following with 607 wine producers.
According to the Australian Wine and Brandy Corporation export approval database, the total amount of WA labelled wine exported peaked in 2006 at 8.6 million litres between April 2005 and April 2006, but dropped to 6.5 million litres between April 07 and April 08.
The total 2008 crush for WA is a similar one to last year at about 70,000 tonnes, compared to the total Australian crush expected to be about 1.5 million tonnes this year.
The statistics also show the price of WA wine per litre decreasing from $11.1 in 2002 to $7.75 in 2006, before rising to $8.54 in 2008.
Comparatively, the Australian wine price per litre has constantly decreased since 2002 from $4.67 to $3.85 in 2008 and is well below the WA average.
“WA wine has a higher price in the market because it has a higher cost in production than the wines made in large volume on the east coast,” WA Wine Association president John Griffiths said.
“If you make WA wine you get paid more for it but the cost to make it is also higher.”
The WA wine industry remains a boutique sector as it is dominated by small businesses, with 90 per cent of wine producers crushing between ten and 500 tonnes of grapes a year.
WA has only one wine business that crushes over 10,000 tonnes of grapes per year and 17 producers crushing between 1,000 to 5,000 tonnes.
“Most WA wineries are small businesses. They tend to capitalise from $1 million to $10 million in machinery and they are quite vulnerable to economic conditions such as interest rate rises, the strong Australian dollar and changes in taxation, such as the wine equalisation tax coming up,” Mr Griffiths said.
“They would not have prominently well known brands on the national and international level.”
Of the 13,091 hectares of vineyard in WA, Cabernet Sauvignon is the most popular wine grape planted, followed by Chardonnay and Shiraz.
Australian wine producers used 134 wine grapes to produce straight varietal or blended wines.
Australia wide, Shiraz is the most common variety with more than 81 per cent of producers listing it, followed by Cabernet Sauvignon and Chardonnay.
About 73 per cent of WA wine companies were established after 1990, against 65.5 per cent in Australia.
However, several wine companies and brands have been in business for 150 years or longer, including WA-based Olive Farm Wines (1829) and Houghton Winery (1836).
