Wine industry focussed on local sales

GEOGRAPHE Wine Region president Simon Holthouse says the most of the region’s wine industry is focused on the strong local market with a minority exploring overseas exports.

Wine Australia released its WA Export Report which showed a 46 per cent decline in the amount of litres of exported by wines labelled Geographe.

However, it also showed an increase of 131 per cent in the amount of litres of wine exported and labelled South West Australia.

Mr Holthouse said the way exported wines were labelled did not necessarily reflect where the grapes were grown.

“Quite a lot of the grapes grown in Geographe get sent to other regions and they may or may not be labelled Geographe,” he said.

“For a wine to be labelled under Geographe it would need to have 85 per cent of the grapes grown in that region.

“Some of the grapes from Geographe may have been sent to other regions and could have been labelled as South West.”

Mr Holthouse said while there had been a small decline in the volume of grapes grown in Geographe region in the past year, it had not had a major impact on the industry. “A lot of the growers in the Geographe area are relatively small compared to some of the growers in the Margaret River area,” he said.

“While we have some slightly larger growers exporting their wine, the majority in Geographe are mainly selling their wine in the local market.”

Mr Holthouse said the Geographe region was becoming better known for its alternative varieties of wines.

“Our wine show, which is coming up shortly, is labelled the Geographe and WA Alternative Varieties Wine Show for that very reason,” he said.