Photo: Cosmo Kentish-Barnes
A wine sector head is predicting an increase in New Zealand wine exports and an expansion in the area of grapes planted.
This comes in the wake of grim news across the Tasman where millions of grape vines are being destroyed to rein in overproduction that's crushed grape prices there.
Australia has two years' worth of production in storage.
New Zealand Wine chief executive Philip Gregan said he was concerned for his colleagues in Australia.
"Australia was hit by the tariffs imposed by China, which being a major export market at the time, that was a completely unexpected hit for them and this trend towards more white wine consumption rather than red has clearly hit them as well so they've had a double whammy."
But he said it was not the same situation for New Zealand's wine sector.
"The trends we are seeing globally, a shift from red wine to white wine, generally means that New Zealand is pretty well placed for the market positioning so we're not anticipating any significant problems for New Zealand at all.
"I think we're going to see on-going vine planting in New Zealand as our exports continue to grow. It's been a challenging few months with de-stocking of supply chains that built up during Covid times but our in-market performance for New Zealand wine sales continues to be very strong and we think that will fuel continuing growth."
He agreed export volumes have been down about 20 percent in the past six months, but said that was because "there's a disconnect between what the export numbers are showing and what the in-market sales numbers are".
He was confident once the supply chain issue was resolved exports will "rebound".
Asked about recent comments that pinot noir may be buffered from the swing away from red wine because it is a light style wine, and he said "I think we'll have to see how that plays out".