Wine production in Australia saw another decrease in fiscal 2010, according to figures released today by the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS).

The total grape crush for 2009-10 was 1.6 million tonnes, down by 7.5 per cent on the previous year. The area of bearing vines fell to 152 thousand hectares and the yield dropped to 10.1 tonnes per hectare. The crush produced 1.1 billion litres of beverage wine, down by 3.4 per cent on last year's figure.

Red wine production declined 1.7 per cent to 613 million litres and white wine accounted fell 7.4 per cent to 498 million litres.

Meanwhile, exports of Australian produced wine rose 4.8 per cent to 789 million litres and domestic sales rose 4.7 per cent to 471 million litres.

Inventories fell 8.3 per cent to 1.7 billion litres. Red table wine stocks of 961 million litres still represent more than half of the beverage wine stock held by winemakers.

The 13 largest winemakers crushed a total of 1.2 million tonnes of grapes or 72 per cent of the total crush. These 13 businesses averaged 89 thousand tonnes each.

Conversely, the 95 smallest winemakers accounted for only 0.7 per cent of all grapes crushed and averaged 120 tonnes each.

A third of all winemaking locations were in South Australia, accounting for 43 per cent of the national wine grape crush, ABS said.