Is China still the golden ticket for Australian wine exports?
Wounded by years of crippling tariffs from their biggest market, are Australian winemakers learning to diversify their exports? Eloise Feilden reports.
The latest data shows that the impact of the Chinese market reopening in March 2024 is beginning to stabilise.
Global Australian wine exports have risen year on year, but this was “almost entirely driven by mainland China after tariffs on Australian bottled wine were removed at the end of March 2024”, says Peter Bailey, manager, market insights at Wine Australia.
Now “the initial surge in exports has eased”. The quarter ended June 2025 was 35% smaller in value than the same quarter in the previous year, indicating that the level of exports to mainland China may be normalising after the initial re-stocking phase.
Australian producers are being told to be cautious; a previous over-reliance on the Chinese market resulted in devastation for the wine industry when the tariffs were imposed in 2020. Now wine brands are working to diversify their export sales.
“With the reopening of the Chinese market, exports of Australian wine in the last 12 months have returned to pre-tariff volumes. At Château Tanunda, we have reconnected with our customers in China, yet also found new avenues of opportunity,” says Michelle Geber, the company’s managing director.
Lee McLean, CEO of Australian Grape & Wine, agrees that producers should avoid over-reliance on one market. “We’ve said from the very beginning that even if China does open the door to us again – and we’re very thankful they have – we need to keep diversifying everywhere we can,” he says.
But, as McLean puts it, this is “easier said than done”. Australia already exports wines to some 116 markets worldwide. “It just happens that China is by far and away our biggest market,” he says.
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But, as global drinking patterns shift and consumption declines, even the Chinese wine market has contracted. The volume of Australian wine shipped to mainland China is half what it was at its peak in 2018.
Sally Burton, senior vice president of international marketing at Jackson Family Wines, explains: “China’s economic slowdown after Covid-19 has impacted consumer spending, particularly for luxury goods including wine.”
At the same time, “during the absence of Australian wine, other countries – such as France, Chile, Spain and Italy – expanded their presence in China, creating a more competitive landscape.
“Further, the new alcohol curb in Beijing, with a crackdown on government spending and alcohol consumption, is having an impact.”
But one region in particular has been protected from the impact of reduced sales in China. Only 5% of Tasmanian wine sales come from overseas, meaning the region was pretty well shielded from the punitive tariffs.
Mainland China was Tasmania’s second-biggest export market in the year to June 2025. However, Wine Tasmania CEO Sheralee Davies reveals that the country “didn’t even come up in the shortlist” when the organisation was discussing where to focus new funding.
“Mainland China wasn’t on the radar for us,” she says, with a local government grant now being pumped into a campaign to target Singapore and South Korea.
Read more on Tasmania’s new export strategy in the October issue of the drinks business or online here.
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