Planning your wine

A 'whole-of-business' perspective

When planning how to make a wine, it can be helpful to consider taking a 'whole-of-business' perspective — rather than only relying on what has been done before, for example — to make decision making clearer across your vineyard, winery and intended markets.

Clarity on margins across the whole supply chain is critical to ensure the best possible value and quality are delivered to customers with thoughtful winemaking and business models that are sustainable for all involved. Ideally, margins should reflect appropriate risk and reward and there are good tools to help understand this which are explained below.

Clarity on wine style is critical; it gives focus, direction and empowers good decision making. It should align with your brand, market segments, opportunities and business overall. Different customers have different preferences that can change over time — at the market and even the individual consumer level. There are many objective and robust ways to keep abreast of these and fine-tune winemaking to help maximise customer loyalty.

Winemaking inputs may need to align with the conditions, requirements or values of some market segments. Even if a business ultimately decides not to pursue those market segments, it can still be an informed decision and made without guesswork.

Why a whole of business approach matters

Wine businesses operate in a complex and changing environment. Seasonal variability, increases in input costs, shifting consumer preferences and evolving domestic and international markets all influence the success of a wine which can make reliable costings more difficult to determine than other sectors.

Planning decisions can have flow‑on effects for:

• vineyard management grape supply source and varietal mix
• winemaking processes and input choices
• staff skillsets
• pricing, margins and routes to market
• brand positioning and long‑term customer loyalty

Considering these factors can help reduce uncertainty and support stronger, more resilient business decisions.

How to determine pricing and margins

Growing and making wine with affordable, appropriate inputs — whether that be labour, capital or direct additives — and achieving sustainable pricing are two of the most fundamental aspects to consider when determining pricing and margins.

Understanding what reasonable and sustainable margins should be for all parties in the supply chain is essential. As simple as that may sound, having fruit arrive at the winery profitably and the final wine sent to the distributor – or even cellar door – with an appropriate ex-winery sale price can be tricky. Clarity on these can also help guide businesses to ask the right questions and dig deeper around their particular circumstances, enabling more informed decisions.

Tailoring your wine style

The sensory-based, more subjective nature of a wine style may seem less suited to data-driven planning but there are still great resources and tools to bring rigour and objectivity to it. Clarity on the type of wine to produce, what style and for which market segments feeds directly back to vineyard and winemaking plans.

As important as it is to take in feedback from the team within the business, trade and maybe cellar door customers, for example, some objective, arms-length guidance can be found in something as simple as wine show results catalogues. While not a definitive guide, the Australian wine show system is unique; results are usually published online and observing the trends in what the judges are rewarding is another straightforward desktop exercise.

Market‑focused information is available that highlights changes in consumer behaviour, styles in growth or decline and even packaging trends. Examples include:

• Endeavour Group's Insights Reports and State of the Grapes report
• Wine Australia's regular Market Bulletins, which provide ongoing information about consumer behaviours and trends across many markets; not all will be relevant to every business but they are data-driven and the methodologies used are clearly explained.
• Wine Australia's Market Insights reports and tools have a great deal of in-depth information about many topics that help businesses in the planning and decision-making process (note some are only available to wine exporters and levy-payers).

Other sources include paid services from IWSR, public reports from KPMG, or even the results from laboratory analysis on samples from benchmarking tastings at the winery.

These sources are not comprehensive and nor will they be suitable for every winery. However, they can help remove guesswork and enable winemaking plans to be developed with the best available information.

Wine Australia is available to help and if businesses still have questions they can always make an appointment to ask an analyst for an online meeting or training session.

Meeting market demands – winemaking additives, practices and certifications

Another set of considerations for winemaking planning that is very segment-specific, ever expanding and sometimes misunderstood is the requirements for certain markets or customer groups as they relate to additives, practices and certifications.

For vegan‑friendly wines, there is now a growing range of plant‑ or yeast‑based alternatives to traditional fining agents and microplastics. These options have improved significantly in recent years. Where wineries make claims or statements on labels or printables about the suitability of a wine for this category, they need to be accurate and verifiable. Some producers have stopped using animal‑based fining agents. It is important that winemaking teams carry out appropriate trials before making changes, and the Australian Wine Research Institute provides detailed guidance on the considerations involved. 

A growing number of consumers are interested in the environmental footprint and sustainability of their wine choices. At the international trade level, sustainability credentials are increasingly linked to market access. For some businesses, accreditation through Sustainable Winegrowing Australia (SWA) may provide value both in market recognition and trade opportunities. The SWA program also gives members access to practical tools and benchmarking data.

Another category of increasing interest is organic wine. Certification pathways in Australia include ACO Certification Ltd (ACO) and the National Association for Sustainable Agriculture Australia (NASAA). Wine Australia has an Export Market Guide for organic wine which outlines international requirements. It is important to note that certification can place significant demands on both vineyard and winery practices.

There are other specialist categories that may be smaller in size but appeal to some businesses, such as preservative‑free or Kosher wine, each with their own certification systems and winemaking requirements.

Important

Any additives or processing aids added to wine made in Australia must be permitted under the FSANZ Food Standards Code. Wine Australia’s Export Market Guide outline whether additional restrictions apply in specific export destinations and are regularly updated.

Further information

For more information on permitted additives, export wine standards or related matters, contact Wine Australia’s Export Assistance team on +61 (0)8 8228 2000 or email [email protected] or [email protected].