University of Adelaide PhD candidate Andrew O’Brien has been awarded Wine Australia’s Dr Tony Jordan OAM Award for 2025 to support his studies into the impact of novel cover crops on the aroma and flavour of wine.
The Australian Food and Wine Collaboration Group is headed to Tokyo in April as part of an ongoing effort to improve bilateral trade relations and increase export opportunities for Australia’s premium wine and food producers.
A feasibility study is underway in South Australia to determine if collection points in the state’s wine regions could be a simple, sustainable and cost-effective way to help vineyard owners manage the disposal of CCA-treated trellis posts.
Across Australian vineyards, it is estimated there are around 70 million timber trellis posts treated with CCA — a timber preservative containing copper, chromium and arsenic that protects it from fungal and insect attack. More than half of these are in South Australia, and each year, between 700,000 to 1.8 million CCA posts need to be disposed of across the state due to breakage, vineyard redevelopment or removal.
Emerging leaders in the Australian wine sector will have new opportunities to develop their skills, with Coonawarra Grape and Wine, Barossa Australia, Wine Victoria and the Queensland Wine Industry Association selected to deliver the Next Crop program in 2025.
For the first time, Next Crop will be offered in the Coonawarra wine region and Queensland. It is also returning to the Barossa, while Victoria’s program will focus on the Yarra Valley, Mornington Peninsula and Gippsland.
As the Australian wine sector moves towards its emissions reduction targets, six innovative packaging solutions for premium wine have been awarded Federal Government grants to test their feasibility.
The grants have been issued as part of the Business Research and Innovation Initiative (BRII) – Renewables and Low Emissions Round, managed by the Department of Industry, Science and Resources. BRII provides funding to startups and SMEs to develop innovative solutions for government policy and service delivery challenges.
Alternative packaging for premium Australian wine was among three challenges of the Renewables and Low Emissions Round.
In the lead up to what is anticipated to be a challenging fire season in many regions, Wine Australia has reviewed the latest research findings and evidence-based advice from the AWRI, La Trobe University and other agencies and organisations to develop a web-based ‘quick reference guide’ to support growers and winemakers who are unfortunate enough to be impacted by fire or smoke this season.
A remediation method for smoke-affected wine that maximises the recovery of value from impacted fruit is being validated in the Australian marketplace as part of a 12-month collaborative project between Wine Australia, VAF Memstar and Amea, the New Zealand-based company behind the solution.
Wine Australia and the AWRI have embarked on a series of research projects that focus on taking research outcomes through to impact in grapegrowing and winemaking businesses. These ‘Impact Projects’ are the result of a substantial rethink on how projects are structured and, more importantly, how their direction and focus is informed to best serve the wine sector. In the following Q&A, Wine Australia’s new Research Impact Manager Josh Hixson explains the benefits of focussing investment towards research impact.
Emerging leaders of Australia’s wine sector from Margaret River and McLaren Vale have graduated from the latest Next Crop program, the regional platform to introduce leadership, business and management skills to build capacity within wine regions.
Phylloxera, crown gall, scale and grapevine viruses are the focus of four new pest and disease research projects now under way with funding by Wine Australia and various research partners.
This market bulletin examines the key insights from the report that was funded by Wine Australia and produced in collaboration with Wine Direct, Enolytics and Georgia Rasmussen Consulting.
Total sales of Australian wine exceeded production for the second year in a row, following successive small vintages, according to the Australian Wine Production, Sales and Inventory Report 2024 released today by Wine Australia.
Consumer research from market research company Growth Scope, based on an analysis of the consumption occasion, provides a new lens for understanding the drivers of wine consumption in Australia. This market bulletin looks at how understanding the consumption occasion can help answer the question: why do people drink wine?
The 2024 Australian vintage was most distinctive for the increase in tonnage and share of white varieties, while reds – and Shiraz in particular – were well down on their long-term average crush. This market bulletin looks at whether the latest retail sales figures for the Australian domestic market reflect these same trends, and identifies which varieties are most in demand.
Shiraz is one of the world’s major red winegrape varieties, ranking fourth in global red plantings behind Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot and Tempranillo. As of 2016, there were about 180,000 hectares of Shiraz under vine around the world – with the largest area located in France, ahead of second-placed Australia.