“Overall, the 2024 winegrape crush showed a nine per cent increase on 2023. But that was not a reason to pop a cork as the 2024 crush of 1.43 million tonnes was well below the 10-year average of 1.73 million tonnes,” reports wine columnist RICHARD CALVER. 

Last month the National Vintage Report 2024 was released by Wine Australia, the government statutory corporation that promotes and regulates the Australian wine industry. 

The headline news is that, as set out in the summary of the report, “the white winegrape share of the crush increased to 51 per cent – the first time since 2014 that the white crush has been higher than the red crush.” 

This trend was contributed to by chardonnay. It had the largest crush with 332,643 tonnes and overtook shiraz to be the top variety by crush size, a status that it last held in 2013. 

Overall, the 2024 crush showed a nine per cent increase on 2023. But that was not a reason to pop a cork as the 2024 crush of 1.43 million tonnes was well below the 10-year average of 1.73 million tonnes. 

The overall fall in the share of red wine was reported by Wine Australia as entirely driven by shiraz, which decreased by nearly 48,000 tonnes while most other red varieties increased. 

A spokesman for Wine Australia said the significant reduction in the red crush can be largely attributed to decisions made by grape growers and wine businesses to reduce production. 

These decisions were being driven by low grape prices, significant red wine stock overhangs and reduced global demand for wine. 

SA accounted for the largest share of the national crush tonnes at 49 per cent of the total, but lost 6 percentage points of share to the other states, particularly Victoria. All states increased in crush size except SA and WA. The second-largest state by crush size was NSW, into which most of the ACT region’s grape growing falls, with an estimated 417,965 tonnes. This was up 18 per cent compared to the previous year, but still 21 per cent below its 10-year average. It accounted for 29 per cent of the national crush compared with 27 per cent in 2023.

In my view, Tasmanian wines shine in quality and now investment in that state is growing, but its grape production is still only one per cent of the total. Tasmania is estimated to have crushed a record 16,702 tonnes, 42 per cent above the 2023 crush and 57 per cent above its 10-year average of 10,614 tonnes, as a result of improved yields after four low-yielding years, combined with continued new plantings.

I contacted Ken Helm, of Helm Wines Murrumbateman, who said the local crush was poor as grapes had been destroyed by frost in October. 

He said he was hoping, along with other growers, for more production here which is, as usual, at odds with national trends: people want more of the district’s wines. 

He said: “The trend to white wine is because the major companies have their tanks full of red wine. which they can’t sell especially following the stuff up of relations with China, only just settled. 

“But they can sell white wines so there’s a big shift in the wine industry, the biggest shift in the last 20 years that sees white wine more popular and getting better sales. 

“On August 8 Halliday’s book came out and it showed that four local rieslings were included in the top wines across Australia, including our premium Helm Riesling. It shows that white wines from Canberra, riesling as the specialty, are still there with the best and that demand for our whites will continue to grow.” 

“Success is simply a matter of luck. Ask any failure.” –Anon