One Billion Liters of Wine on the Wall…
It is being reported that..
One Billion Liters of Wine Is In Storage in Australia!
Someone help with the math here because I keep looking at this number and I really am having a hard time believing it.
Is this the equivalent of more than 100,000,000 cases of wine sitting in storage in Australia?
100,000,000 plus?
And consider that the Australian Harvest is just around the corner. I can’t imagine what the grape growers in that country are looking at in terms of the prices they’ll get for this year’s grapes.
This sort of surplus, sitting in the warehouses of a wine exporting country, affects LOTS of people. They are going to have to dump this wine on markets around the world and at prices that will be akin to giving it away. This is GREAT for consumers…but at what cost to producers. How would you like to be sitting on average California wine that you hope to sell or $10 a bottle? Yikes!
And if you are an Australian brand with lots of good brand equity in the market, you can’t just lower your price on your front line brand then hope to spike the prices when the surplus is over with. By that time consumers and the market will have already become accustomed to paying much less for your wine.
Meaning, we are going to see even more "new" and "second" labels from Australian producers hit the market…and at great prices.
I’m hoping some of the experts on the Australian wine industry in the blogosphere and elsewhere will weigh in on this.
UPDATE:
Just for perspective’s sake, you could give a bottle of wine
to every single person living in Australia, The United States,
France, Spain and Germany and still have more than half of
this surplus in tank.
Oh great, Just what we need, more yellow tail! I wonder if there is a way to convert it to automobile fuel?
Randy – My thoughts exactly.
hmmm..I only get 3 1/2 million cases. Maybe my math is wrong. 3 litters = 4 bottles
1000000000 / 3 = 333,333,333 / 4 = 83,333,333 Bottles, / 24 in a case = 3,472,222
Didn’t two buck Chuck sell 3 Million cases in it’s first year?
Oh wait, my bad… I made it to hard..
1 billion liters = 750 million bottles / 24
31,250,000 cases.
That’s more like it.
(It’s been a long week)
Oh god, that’s still wrong isn’t it. 1.25 billion bottles is 1 billion litters /12 bottles in a case 104 Million Cases.
You were right Tom, you were right.
(Looks like I need to revisit my 3rd grade math book.)
I don’t care how cheap that stuff gets, I ain’t gonna drink it.
And my Constant Companion and I could draw down their surplus within 6 months…
One thing that we are seeing here in Australia due to this, is a surge in availability of “cleanskins”. These wines will usually have a label indicating only grape types, alcohol %, any additives and perhaps a region. For some wineries, this is a way to sell their excess wine cheaply (and quickly since consumers seem to love cleanskins) without damaging the value of their regular label.
With my current rate of consumption over the holiday period, I should be able to get through the surplus juice by about April…alas to late for some regions which will have the grapes in by them and will be screaming for tank space.
All reports are pointing to another bumper crop in 2006 as well..I’ve spoken to a few winemakers in the Barossa and Margaret River where I am at the moment and they all say it could be a biger crop than last year….a lot of fruit left hanging on the vines i think.
Cheers
Dave
We have several (full) wine bottles dating to the early 90’s. I.E. 96 Monterey Vineyard Pinot Noir. How long do bottles of this type generally last before going bad.
Thanks,
Hart
Sir/Mdm,
I am from the southern hemisphere. I started off with Australian wines, some 20 years ago and stayed with it most of the time. More recently, I have noticed that many Australian wines are labled “…produced with the aid of egg …” and there may be remains of it in the wine. I thought wine was just grapes.
Sir/Mdm,
I am from the southern hemisphere. I started off with Australian wines, some 20 years ago and stayed with it most of the time. More recently, I have noticed that many Australian wines are labled “…produced with the aid of egg …” and there may be remains of it in the wine. I thought wine was just grapes.
Hi Balan
The labelling laws are in place to basically protect both the winery and the consumer…winery from lawsuits if someone with an alergy keels over after a drink and the consumer…well for the above and also wine is one of the only agricultural products where the wine buyer…that is the informed wine buyer wants to know as much about the product as possible…where it’s from, how old were the vines, how was it made and aged, what was added, etc,etc.
For your information the egg on the label refers to fining with egg whites to remove any colloidial matter from the wine, they also use casein from milk, isinglass from fish, a fine clay called Bentonite, Gelatin, PVPP ans silica sol to the same effect but each removes different things from the wine.
Dave
I think this is a really great idea for the people of the Pacific Islands.
It will help bring vital resources to the community and bring the people
closer together.