Wine Glut? How Can There Be A Wine Glut?

Apparently, there’s too much wine.

I said to Mrs BobinOz, “Apparently there’s too much wine” and she said “That’s ridiculous! How can you have too much wine?”

Precisely.

So what’s the story? Apparently, we have too many vineyards, have produced way too many grapes, resulting in far too much wine which is outstripping demand. Australia alone has a surplus of around 100 million cases of wine with another 40 million cases likely to be added to that over the next 12 months.

And it’s not just Australia that has a glut of wine, it’s a worldwide thing. It seems that in the mid-1990s, there was a shortage of grapes. So everyone jumped on the bandwagon to meet the supply and pocket the huge profits, thanks to the high prices they could get for their crops. Places like South Africa, Argentina and California went into full production.

Kerching!!!

Five favourite wines

But Australia has a larger surplus than most, relatively, because the Aussie dollar has remained strong throughout the global financial crisis, so why would other countries get their grapes from us?

So we now have a “wine mountain”.

Okay, I feel sorry for the many well established vineyards that are now suffering from this surfeit, like one of Queensland’s largest vineyards, Sirromet.

The wine vats are full to the brim

They are “mothballing” or closing down some of their sites for a year or two and will then re-look at the whole situation. Not surprising as they, on their own, have an apparent stock of 12 million bottles.

Sirromet's surrounding grounds look good though.

Meanwhile, wine is available here for as little as $2.50 a bottle (palatable) but for $5 or more you can actually buy some decent wines. Not only have the prices of many bottles come down, but stores are offering 30% discounts again for buying 6 or more bottles.

Makes me wonder, do some people buy less than 6 bottles at a time then? Either way, wine drinkers have never had it so good.

Every cloud……