Australian and Californian crops dramatically reduced

The fear of another grape glut in parts of the New World is disappearing. With crop figures way down in both Australia and California, the problem of oversupply looks likely to balance out.

Australia’s harvest is expected to be the smallest in seven years and a third smaller than in 2006, meaning winemakers will have 400 million litres less wine. The severe drought that was experienced across much of Australia has done much to bring production levels back into balance, as water allocations to growers were restricted and yields have gone down dramatically as a result. If anything, Australia’s water scarcity seems to provide a natural balance to the country’s grape oversupply problem.

The Australian Wine and Brandy Corporation’s Manager, Information and Analysis, Lawrie Stanford said that, ‘From a whole-of-industry perspective, the prospect of a very low yielding season will be viewed with some relief as it will allow excess wine stocks to be reduced to more reasonable levels.’

In California, too, crops were down to a more respectable figure last year compared to the excessive crush of 2005. That year’s harvest was a million tons higher than 2004. Positively, this lower level of production looks set to continue because the acreage of grapevines has just about levelled out after 11 years of steady increases. The upshot of this is that California won’t be able to produce ever larger crops and sales will have a chance to catch up with supply.

In South Africa early estimates suggest that the harvest will be only half a per cent smaller than last year. But as this is less oversupply than had been expected, this has calmed fears there.