Database of Australian Winegrape Vine Area, Crush, Price and Per Hectare Volume and Value of Production, by Region and Variety, 1956 to 2023

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The vigneron’s choice of winegrape varieties to grow depends on many things, both physical (terroir) and economic. Both opportunities and competitive challenges abound for producers seeking to attract the attention of consumers by differentiating their product, or alternatively by emulating the most successful producers. One strategy for producers to attract consumer attention has been to display names of (especially popular) grape varieties on wine bottle labels. Its success, particularly for popular lower-priced New World wines, has led to regulators in the European Union acceding to some degree to demands for a freeing up of labelling laws so as to allow such labelling there. As well, producers in the New World are increasingly realizing the marketing value of going beyond country of origin to regional labelling as another form of product differentiation – something that has long been practiced by Europe’s traditional producers. Meanwhile, producers everywhere are well aware of the impact climate changes (higher temperatures, more extreme weather events, …) are having on the quality their winegrapes and on vineyard yields and production costs. Adaptation strategies include switching to warmer-climate or more-resilient grape varieties, and re-locating to a region at a higher latitude or elevation to retain the current mix of grape varieties in their portfolio. Especially in the New World, where regions are still trying to identify their varietal comparative advantages and where regulations do not restrict varietal choice, winegrowers are continually on the lookout for attractive alternative varieties that do well in climates similar to what they expect theirs to become in the decades ahead.

To see how those various forces are affecting plantings in Australia, and to be able to analyze those trends, we have put together a time series of winegrape data for Australia and its various wine regions. As of September 2023 we have compiled data for 23 vintages from 2001 to 2023 for 75 wine regions of Australia. The Excel file also includes national varietal data going back to 1956.