About two-thirds of Australia’s wine grapes are grown in irrigated inland areas such as Griffith, its landscape shaped by vine-growing techniques brought by Italian migrants arriving around the 1950s. That would destroy more than 20 million vines across 12,000 hectares (30,000 acres), Reuters calculations based on Wine Australia data show, or about 8% of Australia’s total area under vine. “If half the vines in Australia were ripped out, it still might not solve the oversupply,” said a wine maker in Western Australia. When China blocked imports during a political dispute in 2020, Australia lost its biggest wine export market by value. And unlike Europe, it offers farmers no financial aid to help them destroy vines and excess wine.

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Persons: “, ”, James Cremasco, Griffith, TWE.AX, Carlyle Group’s, Andrew Calabria, Cremasco, Jeremy Cass, Tim Mableson, Bill Calabria, Andrew’s, There’ll Organizations: CNN, Accolade, Wine, Riverina Winegrape Growers, Growers, KPMG Locations: Australia, China, Griffith, Calabria, Riverina, Wine Australia, Western Australia, Chile, France, United States, Bordeaux, Europe, Tasmania, Yarra, Victoria