#2 – 101 Australian compact facts
A more statistical fact for this week: Australian vines have shrunk…. well just the land that they are planted on. The total area under vine in Australia for 2010 was 152 000 hectares (ABS: 2010). This was down 7 000 hectares from 2009. France has 861 000 hectares under vine in 2007, Spain has over 1 million hectares.
Interestingly, our iconic wine region the Barossa, covering the Barossa & Eden Valleys, is just 13 400 ha. Keeping the comparison going, the iconic Bordeaux region has 61 700 ha under vine.
Tasmania is the only state of Australia to increase its area under vine but only by 20 ha, however we should view this as just a hint of what is yet to come from Tassie. Just like many other wine regions around the world, Australia is suffering some churn due to changing demand. So just what was grubbed / pulled out or just plain lost? Of the 7 000 ha lost, 1 960 ha was Chardonnay, 1 600 ha Shiraz & 1 000 ha Cabernet Sauvignon.
Incidently, from our 152 000 hectares we are producing around 1.2 billion litres (ABS: 2009-10) of which only 37% is consumed domestically. Just saying ….
You can add another 3 acres of shiraz just pulled out by us! So heartbreaking, but had to be done. Still got one acre of shiraz and 4 acres of great verdelho grapes which do so well up here. Last year was a cracka!
The main problem here in the Hunter Valley is that people give up looking after their vines and don’t pull them out properly, leaving disease problems for everyone else. Cheers
I am so sorry to hear it. You are right, it is heartbreaking to hear about the continuous loss of good vines. Good to hear that you have kept some Shiraz amongst your Verdelho.