Exploring the Surplus: Wine Overproduction Leading to Vineyard Destruction and Wasted Product

Declining demand for alcoholic drinks has led to an excess of wine.

Consequently, several farmers across Australia, California, and France are uprooting whole sections of their vineyards.

Recently, a South Australian grower, Tony Townsend, informed Bloomberg that he is demolishing his 34-acre vineyard, after years of nurturing the vines.

“Despite my enjoyment of being part of the wine industry, the financial viability of maintaining it faded away,” he stated. He further added that despite a healthy crop, the harvest would have cost him around $23,000.

Townsend’s not alone. Reuters reported tens of millions of vines will be ripped out in Australia to address the excess supply. As of last year, the amount of extra wine in storage in Australia was equal to two years of production, the outlet said, with some going bad before it could be sold.

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“It feels like an era is ending,” vineyard owner Andrew Calabria of Calabria Wines in Australia told Reuters, adding: “It’s hard for growers to look out the back window and see a pile of dirt instead of vines that have been there as long as they’ve known.”

Excess supply is also impacting winemakers in Europe and the US.

Last year, the French government, renowned for its dedication to protecting traditional culinary items, announced its plans to allocate $216 million towards the destruction of surplus wine as an attempt to rescue the declining industry. Rather than being enjoyed, the wine is repurposed into industrial alcohol, contributing to the composition of various products such as perfumes, hand sanitizers, and cleaning solutions.

Simultaneously, France is offering financial support to Bordeaux growers who are tearing out roughly 10% of their vineyards.

The San Francisco Chronicle informed that some California growers too, are demolishing their vineyards, with a portion of them choosing to cultivate other crops instead.

A contributing factor for this overproduction lies in the shift of demand – people no longer consume alcohol as they used to.

Wine consumption rose in the ’90s when many believed it to be associated with good health, but as Americans have drunk less and less alcohol over the past decade, production has exceeded demand, the Chronicle reported.

“People in this business took it for granted that there was always going to be growth,” Jeff Bitter, president of Allied Grape Growers in California, told the outlet.

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