Wine and Spirit Production

NAME OF ORGANISATION
Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS)

OVERVIEW
Annual collection sent to each establishment of Winemakers crushing >400 tonnes of grapes per year. Information is obtained on red and white grapes crushed, wine production, spirit used and spirit produced. Some State and regional data is available.

PURPOSE
Data on total production provides one of the inputs for an industry reconciliation. Grape crush data is used to confront viticulture data on grape production for winemaking.

SCOPE
All winemakers who crush more than 400 tonnes of grapes.

DATA DETAIL

Conceptual framework
Winemakers crushing more than 400 tonnes of grapes report materials used and articles produced for wine production, and spirit usage and production. This is an activity based survey.

Main outputs
Quantifies the size of the grape crush and the wine and spirit production by state, with some regional data for SA and NSW published in the annual Australian Wine and Grape Industry (ABS Cat. No. 1329.0).

Classifications

Grape type crushed, Type of grape juice used, Type of wine and grape juice produced, Type of spirit used and produced.

Other concepts (summary)
For the purposes of this collection, winemakers are those businesses that crush grapes, ferment wine, ie, take grape juice and turn it into wine. Winemakers that blend wine only are considered outside the scope for this collection.

GEOGRAPHIC DETAIL
Australia
New South Wales
Victoria
Queensland
South Australia
Western Australia
Tasmania
ACT
Other (specify below)

Comments and/or Other Regions

Statistics are available for several "recognised grape-producing regions" within NSW, Vic., SA, and WA. These regions equate to or are the aggregation of a number of Local Government areas.

COLLECTION FREQUENCY
Annually

Frequency comments
Collection forms are despatched approximately the end of June each year with a return date by the end of July. The data are published approximately six months following the reference period.

COLLECTION HISTORY
Data is available from 1963-64. At that time the collection split Fortified wine into 'dry white', 'sweet white' and 'sweet red' categories, while Unfortified wine was split into 'red' and 'white' categories. An additional split is available for production 'in bond' and 'out of bond'.
1970-71 the 'in bond', 'out of bond ' split was dropped.
1975-76 Fortified and Unfortified type splits were dropped.
1976-77 Scope changed from winemakers crushing >10 tonnes to winemakers crushing>400 tonnes.The estimated scope was 98% of total crushings and wine production.
1977-78 Materials used in the form of 'fresh grapes processed' and 'grape spirit used' was first published.
1986-87 A separate collection of winemakers crushing >50 and <400 tonnes was created for coverage purposes.
1994-95 Grapes crushed has been split into 'red' and 'white' grapes crushed.
1996-97 only, user funding was provided to collect 7 specified red grape varieties crushed and 8 specified white grape varieties.

DATA AVAILABILITY
Yes