Early predictions from the New Zealand wine industry say the ’09 harvest could be 10 thousand tonnes shy of last year’s record crop.

In part that will be due to a decision to cut back the crop for fear of over-supplying a depressed world market. 

But in Australia, a leading industry figure says the entire wine industry there needs to down-size itself by 20 per cent – and the change must happen sooner rather than later.

Winemakers Federation of Australia chief executive Stephen Strachan says an over-supply of grapes on the market is forcing down prices across the Tasman, at the same time that drought and high water prices are raising costs for growers. 

(Picture: The Yarra Valley, Australia. Photo courtesy of Wine Australia).

But there’s no chance that Australia will hold a series of ‘size of the harvest’ meetings similar to the one held by New Zealand Winegrowers in Marlborough late last year.

“We have a Trade Practices Act which really does preclude us from doing those sorts of things,” says Mr Strachan. 

“Everyone in the industry would like to find a solution for this, but we are really limited in what we can come together and talk about, even though we all know it’s in our industry’s long term interest. It really has to be left to market forces.

“We have an over-supply that we have been labouring under for some years now. It seems the market just has not worked in the sense of sending signals through the supply chain. And so we haven’t seen the wholesale removal of vineyards that most of us would have expected to see by now. 

Mr Strachan says the next 12 months will see some “reasonably large adjustments in the industry”. 

Mr Strachan says there was been a degree of conflict between Australian wineries and grape growers over the years, but in the toughest year the industry has yet faced, he believes there is acceptance of the need for change.