The global wine production market is dominated by the traditional wine production countries Italy, France and Spain. Nevertheless, Australia was ranked as sixth largest wine producing nation with a total production volume of approximately 13 million hectoliters in 2018.
The wine production industry in Australia generated a revenue of approximately 6.04 million Australian dollars in 2018 and is projected to grow continuously until 2022. More than one third of the total wine production market in Australia in 2018 was held by four companies: Treasury Wine Estates Limited, Pernod Ricard Pacific Holding Pty Ltd, Accolade Wines Holdings Australia Pty Limited and Casella Wines Pty Limited. The total vineyard area used for wine production in Australia reached 115.88 hectares of land in 2015, of which the grape varieties Shiraz, Cabernet Sauvignon and Chardonnay required by far the largest amount of land.
In terms of global wine consumption, Australia only ranked number nine in 2018. Despite an 0.5 percent increase in domestic wine demand in Australia in the financial year 2018, wine worth around 840 million Australian dollars was imported to Australia. Wine imports mostly originated from New Zealand and France. Nevertheless, trade balance of wine in Australia was positive, with exports considerably exceeding imports. Australian wine export value reached over 2.57 billion Australian dollars in the financial year 2018 and the export value is projected to reach around 2.94 billion Australian dollars by 2022. Based on export volume, Australia was the fifth largest wine export nation worldwide in 2018.
Even though Australia is an important wine exporting nation, the volume of domestic wine sales reached 501 million liters in 2019. In total, an average Australian drank about 27 liters of wine per person in 2018. White wine accounted for the majority of the per capita wine consumption in Australia.
