Evolving varietal and quality distinctiveness of Australia’s wine regions Kym Anderson Wine Economics Research Centre School of Economics University of Adelaide Adelaide SA 5005 Australia
[email protected] January 2014 Paper to be presented at the Mini-Symposium on The Wine Industry in Australian Regional Economies at the Annual Conference of the AARES, Port Macquarie, 4-7 February 2014. The author is grateful for helpful comments from Brian Croser and Terry Lee, for meticulous research assistance by Nanda Aryal in compiling the database and indicators, and for financial assistance from Australia’s Grape and Wine Research and Development Corporation (Project Number UA 12/08). Views expressed are the author’s alone. Abstract In an ever-more-competitive global market, vignerons compete for the attention of consumers by trying to differentiate their product while also responding to technological advances, climate changes and evolving demand patterns. In doing so, they increasingly highlight their regional and varietal distinctiveness. This paper examines the extent to which the mix of winegrape varieties in Australia differs from the rest of the world and differs across wine regions within the country, and how that picture has altered over the first decade of this century. It reports varietal intensity indexes for different regions, indexes of similarity of varietal mix between regions and over time, and quality indexes across regions and varieties within Australia. The study is based mainly on a new global database of vine bearing areas circa 2000 and 2010, supplemented by a more-detailed database for Australia. It reveals that the varietal distinctiveness of Australia vis-à-vis the rest of the world, and varietal differentation between regions within the country, are far less than for other countries – a pattern that has become even more pronounced since 2000.