Australia wine heading back to China

Australia has seen a sudden increase in sales of wine to China after the punitive tariffs used to punish Australian wine were removed in March.

Don Farrell, Australia’s trade minister, said AU$86 million (£44.7 million) of wine was shipped to China in April, the month after tariffs were lifted. Prior to the tariff imposition in 2020, mainland China was Australian wine’s most valuable export market. Australian exports to mainland China peaked at AU$1.3 billion in the 12 months to October 2020, when the volume of wine exported into China sat at 121 million litres.

But the Chinese market is unlikely to be the solution to Australia's oversupply issues. According to official import statistics from Trade Data Monitor, total wine imports to China are a third of what they were five years ago, having fallen from 688 million litres in 2018 to 248 million litres in 2023. In value terms, the size of China’s imported wine market has more than halved since 2019 from AU$3.3bn to AU$1.5bn last year. The top four countries for wine imports to mainland China – France, Chile, Italy and Spain – all recorded significant declines in their exports to the market in the 12 months ending December 2023.