“Wine tourism is a bright patch amongst an industry that is otherwise in decline,” reveals aine columnist RICHARD CALVER.

I’d like to start with a joke about trickle down economics but 99 per cent of you won’t get it. 

Instead. I’ll talk about the new report, Economic Contribution Australian Wine Sector 2025, published by Wine Australia. 

Wine Australia is a Commonwealth Government statutory authority established under the Wine Australia Act 2013. 

It gets its funding from grape-grower, winemaker and exporter levies and user-pays charges, with matching funds from the Australian Government for research and innovation. 

Boom, they’ve spent money on economic research. In a media release, Wine Australia CEO Dr Martin Cole says the report demonstrates the importance of the sector to the economy and particularly for Australia’s regional communities. 

The report shows the $51.3 billion that the sector contributes to the Australian economy includes $25.4 billion in value-added, which is the difference between the gross value of the business turnover and the costs of raw materials and services to produce the output. The overall economic contribution also includes $15 billion in wages and salaries for 203,392 direct and indirect employees.

The report highlights the growing importance of the wine tourism industry to the sector. The report notes that Tourism Research Australia estimated there were 7.5 million visits to wineries from domestic and international travellers in the year ending March 2024.

These travellers spent $11.6 billion during their entire trip and are typically higher spenders with an average spend per trip of $1487.

While domestic travellers made up the majority (89 per cent) of visits to wineries, they were only 59 per cent of the spend.

So the data shows that getting more international travellers to wineries would be more beneficial than relying on increasing domestic visits.

Alas, the data shows that comparing the number of visitors in 2019 with those in 2025, there was a decline in international visitors but an increase in domestic visitors. 

Wine tourism is a bright patch amongst an industry that is otherwise in decline.

The crush in 2019 was 1.79 million tonnes but in 2025 it was 1.41 million tonnes. Comparing the same period, wine sales fell from $6.3 billion to $5.7 billion. The report notes that the trend downward is likely to continue saying: “Global wine supply and consumption are at their lowest since 1961 and further contractions are forecast for the next five years. 

“Forecasts point to a consolidation of the Australian wine sector’s position rather than a period of sector growth.”

This somewhat gloomy outlook is again brightened when the focus is turned on wine tourism with the report noting that losses in the economic contribution of grape growing and wine making have been offset by growth in the wine-tourism sector. 

Because of that growth, overall, the sector’s contribution to GDP (gross output) is up 12.7 per cent over six years or about 2.1 per cent a year.

Speaking of bare facts, two economists were sitting down enjoying the sun at a nudist colony. 

One turns to the other and says: “Have you read Marx?”

The second economist says: “It’s these blasted wicker chairs.”