About the report

The Economic Contribution Australian Wine Sector 2025 is an economic assessment of the wine sector’s direct and indirect contribution to the Australian economy in 2025^[1]. It was prepared by AgEconPlus and Gillespie Economics for Wine Australia.

The Australian wine sector makes a significant contribution to the Australian economy. This includes the economic activity associated with grape growing in vineyards and wine production, and extends to the economic activity from wine related tourism. These three components of the Australian wine sector also have strong linkages to other sectors of the Australian economy, in particular the businesses that supply the goods and services required for grape growing, wine making and the wine tourism experience, as well as the goods and services demanded by employees. Consequently, the contribution of the Australian wine sector to the Australian economy is greater than just its direct effects.

Section 2 of the report locates the industry geographically and provides an overview of the nature and scope of the components of the wine sector. Section 3 outlines the input-output (IO) modelling method used to examine the direct and indirect economic effects of the wine sector. Section 4 combines available data to develop a revenue, expenditure and employment profile for the grape growing, wine manufacturing and wine tourism sectors of the Australian economy. The modelling of these sectors to assess their flow-on effects for the economy is then reported in Section 5. Conclusions are provided in Section 6.

Report Summary

Wine grapes are grown in every Australian state with South Australia, NSW and Victoria being the largest wine grape producers. In 2024, there were estimated to be 5,408 wine grape growers with a vineyard area of 146,244  ha generating a gross wine grape sales value of $994 million.

Wine is Australia’s fifth largest agricultural export industry. In 2024 there were estimated to be 2,156 Australian wineries and total Australian wine production was 1.04 billion litres with a gross value to the wine makers of $5.7 billion.

Tourism Research Australia estimated that there were 7.5 million visits to wineries from both domestic and international travellers in year ending December 2024. For those travellers that included a visit to a winery, they spent $11.6 billion during their entire trip and are typically higher spenders with an average spend per trip of $1,487. 

Sections 3 to 5 has quantified the direct and flow-on effects of the Australian wine sector (defined as wine grape growing, wine making and wine related tourism). The key results from the analysis are as follows:

• Supports 203,392 direct and indirect full and part-time jobs.
• Generates income from both direct and flow-on employment in the wine sector of $15 billion.
• Contributes $51.3 billion to the value of gross output for Australia.
• Adds $25.4 billion in value-added to the Australian economy.

^{[1] Using 2024/25 data where this is available and the most recent alternative where it is not. For example, ABS Regional Employment data is from calendar year 2021.}

About the source

Research project commissioned by Wine Australia and undertaken by AgEcon Plus and Gillespie Economics.