China and Australia have agreed to a five-month review of the wine tariffs that have threatened to derail the Aussie wine industry over the last three years. However, analysts say that even if the tariffs were removed overnight it would still take two years to clear Australia’s wine surplus. Hopes of a rapprochement between Australia and China over Beijing’s punitive wine tariffs have soared after Australia’s prime minister, Anthony Albanese, revealed at the weekend that the two governments have agreed to a five-month long review of the tariffs. But even if the wrangle were to be settled overnight, the loss for the past three years of Australian wine’s biggest export market means the industry has been forced into its most dramatic rethink in more than a generation. The duties were introduced in late 2020 and overnight shut down Australia’s biggest export market (China), worth more than AU$1.2 billion (£620 million). The tariffs have drastically reshaped the landscape for Australia’s grape growers and wineries. Long gone are the days when Australian wines were stigmatised as cheap and high-alcohol, but the bulk do remain at the “commercial” or “commodity” end of the quality spectrum, and this is the category most feeling the pressure. This is because worldwide, consumers are moving up the quality scale, drinking less but drinking better. France, for instance, has introduced a scheme to convert 300 million litres of surplus wine into pure alcohol and is paying vignerons to grub up vines which will reduce the planted acreage in the
This Article was originally published on The Drink Business - Wine