WEALTHY lifestyle farmers whose vineyards produced low-grade fruit are resisting industry attempts to deal with an oversupply that is undermining some of the nation's best brands.
Winemakers' Federation of Australia chief executive Stephen Strachan said the oversupply was not solely a warm climate problem.
"The case for restructure is compelling," Mr Strachan said.
"There are a lot of wrong varieties in wrong regions, wrong sites ... and the days of have-a-go vineyards are well and truly over," he said.
"The same applies to a whole lot of winemakers."
Speaking at last month's sixth annual What's Going On? update at Mildura, Mr Strachan said many growers in cool climate regions were four years behind warm climate growers in tackling the oversupply.
The cool climate regions also included many "lifestyle producers", with income from other sources, who had wealth and low debt, so they had no need to adjust rapidly to the oversupply.
Mr Strachan said a proportion of these growers would hold on for at least another two or three years before deciding to remove any vines.
Apart from plummeting grape prices paid to growers, Mr Strachan said the oversupply was undermining brands such as Jacobs Creek and yellow tail, which had been the backbone of the Australian wine industry's success overseas.
Mr Strachan said retailers, who could buy wine at below cost and sell it under their own label, were forcing established brands to cut their prices in order to gain shelf space.
More than 27 million cases of wine had been sold at below cost, with 11 million cases of export sales as bulk wine below $1 per litre, he said.
