AUSTRALIA'S wine industry appears set for a major shake-up amid growing pressure from leading winemakers to slash production and cut winery numbers.
The Adelaide Advertiser reports the push for reform involves calls for a 60 per cent cut to producer numbers and to cut wine production by 20 per cent within a decade.
The reforms, outlined at a Wine Industry Outlook Conference in Sydney last week, also include a push to halve the range of wines sold in Australian liquor outlets and for smaller vineyards and wineries to be replaced by much bigger operations.
Winemakers are concerned that the average Australian harvest is now about 1.9 million tonnes but demand is running at less than 1.5 million tonnes.
John Grant, president of Constellation Wines Australia, said the supply-demand position meant that this year's surplus of 476 million litres of wine at June 30 – the equivalent of about 680,000 tonnes of grapes – would get "longer and longer".
"The industry needs to reduce its production by around 20 per cent or, put another way, for every five rows in the vineyards one row needs to be removed," Mr Grant told the Adelaide Advertiser.
Alister Purbrick, a former president of the association, suggested that in 10-15 years a 1.75 million tonne crop could be sustainable.
