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.
Since the 1990s, Wine Australia has co-invested with Australia’s national science agency, CSIRO, to breed new grapevine varieties with resistance to powdery mildew and downy mildew.
These varieties significantly reduce the need for fungicide application, lowering chemical use in the vineyard, reducing the cost of production and crop loss, lowering vineyard emissions and improving sustainability of the Australian wine sector.
New rootstock varieties with resistance to phylloxera and root knot nematodes have also been developed.
These breeding programs, together with a number of other projects, were part of a strategic research agreement with CSIRO that concluded in June 2022. The final reports on these projects have recently been published on the Wine Australia website.
The potential impact of fungicides on the micro-organisms that exist on the surface of grapevines and the flow-on effect on the sensory outcome of wines has been explored as part of a PhD project funded under Wine Australia’s research scholarship program.
Significant progress has been made in the three-year scale project led and jointly funded by the South Australian Research and Development Institute (SARDI) and Wine Australia, in collaboration with the University of Adelaide, the Australian Wine Research Institute (AWRI) and the Australian National University (ANU).
Seven undergraduate viticulture and oenology students from the University of Adelaide have undertaken a 10-week placement in an Australian winery during the 2025 vintage with the support of funding from Wine Australia through its Further Afield Scholarship program.
The competitive scholarship program is aimed at supporting and encouraging undergraduate and post-graduate students to undertake placements outside of grapegrowing and winemaking regions surrounding metropolitan Adelaide by assisting with the costs of travel and accommodation.
Identifying the most effective financial mechanisms to motivate landholders, including vineyard owners, in the Murray Darling Basin to adopt climate-resilient and sustainable practices is the aim of a project being co-funded by Wine Australia and coordinated by the OneBasin Cooperative Research Centre (CRC).
This market bulletin addresses the key challenges faced by the wine sector, examines some of the key trends that are influencing wine consumption globally, and discusses some of the potential growth opportunities that these trends may offer Australian wine businesses.
In the last two months, one of Australia’s key export markets has been caught in an accelerating trade war. Canada is the fourth largest export market for Australian wine, representing 10 per cent of volume exported in 2024. This Market Bulletin will give you a rundown of the most important things to be aware of when considering the Canadian wine market in 2025.
This market bulletin looks at whether the reduction in global supply is likely to lead to improved market conditions – and higher prices – for wine and winegrapes in Australia.
This market bulletin provides an update on the performance of the no and low alcohol wine categories globally, highlighting markets that have been growing.
On 1 August 2023, wine sold in the United Kingdom started being taxed on the level of alcohol in the product, rather than by volume. This has already had an impact on the level of alcohol in wine sold in the UK, including Australian products. This Market Bulletin will give an overview of the duty changes and how they are already impacting on exports and retail sales.