It can be difficult to work out the actual cost of growing grapes in a particular season. Some cost items - like fuel and energy – may cover other farm activities as well, and others – e.g. chemicals and fertilisers - may be purchased for multiple years at a time. It can also be hard to work out the impact of a change in one of the components (e.g. the cost of temporary water) without a lot of time (and maths).
Wine Australia’s new online Grape Growing Cost Calculator provides a quick and easily accessible way to estimate the cost of growing grapes, identify the contribution of different cost components and understand the impact of changes to any of these on the bottom line.
The calculator was specifically developed for growers in the inland regions of Australia, and currently only has data for the Riverland, Murray Darling / Swan Hill and Riverina regions.
Much like an online mortgage calculator, the Grape Growing Cost Calculator requires only minimal input from the user and gives a fast and clear result. It works by using average or typical values for a given region, type of business operation and business size, so it does not require looking up any actual financial data. Many of the default cost assumptions used in the model can be edited to get a more customised result; however, it is important to note that the calculator is intended to be used as a planning tool, rather than a way of accurately determining the actual costs for an individual business, and does not replace financial statements for reporting purposes.
The Grape Growing Cost Calculator can be used in many ways, including:
- to estimate the costs to grow grapes in a previous season, a future season or an average season,
- to understand the contribution of different cost components, and how a change in one impacts the overall cost,
- to estimate the likely return based on a given yield and income, and
- to model different scenarios – e.g. what would happen if more sprays were applied, or yields were increased
The following example illustrates how the calculator works.
Example grower: a family business based in Riverina, with a total vineyard area of 25 ha, from which 500 tonnes of grapes were produced last season (20 tonnes per hectare). The business is run as an ‘owner operator’ where the husband and wife do all the work on the vineyard themselves except for harvesting. The season was ‘low disease pressure’ (requiring no systemic fungicides or botryticides) and they applied 100 megalitres (ML) of their own water, plus 50 ML of temporary water. They have a total debt of $200,000 and no lease/rent costs for the vineyard.
They were paid a total of $180,000 for their grapes (an average of $360 per tonne).
Estimating the cost of grapes
Entering the key variables (in bold) into the calculator produces the result below (Figure 1).
Figure 1: Result calculation from the Grape Growing Cost Calculator showing cost summary based on example scenario
The total cost for this example is estimated to be $151,634 or $303 per tonne, with variable costs accounting for $187 per tonne (62 per cent). Note: in this example there is no provision for labour costs for the grower.
Understanding the impact of different cost components
The calculator has put in default values for all the component costs as well as row spacing, number of sprays, number and type of vineyard operations (eg trimming and slashing) and vineyard admin hours. The user can change these if desired. For example, if the temporary water cost is changed from $245 per ML (average market trade price in June 2025) to $100 per ML, the total cost is reduced to $289 per tonne.
The cost types shown in the screenshot above can be expanded to view all the different cost components, including the amounts (worked out in total, per hectare and per tonne) and percentage contribution to the total. In this example, water costs make up 21 per cent of the total cost, while harvesting makes up 11 per cent.
Modelling different scenarios
Example: the grower wants to look at ‘what if’ they had a high disease pressure year next year, with a reduced yield of 400 tonnes (16 tonnes per hectare). They expect to reduce their temporary water use to 10 ML but the cost of the water is set at the current default rate of $245 per ML.
In this case, the total cost increases from $303 per tonne to $364 per tonne. If the price paid remains the same ($350 per tonne) then the gross margin will be $52,438 ($131 per tonne) and net income will be -$5647 (Figure 2). Another way of looking at this would be that the grower will require $364 per tonne (averaged across all grapes sold) to break-even in this scenario (without any net income to cover the owners’ labour).
Figure 2: Result calculation from Grape Growing Cost Calculator showing income based on example scenario
The Grape Growing Cost Calculator can be found here.
Contact market.insights@wineaustralia.com for more information.
The calculator was designed by Wine Australia in consultation with growers, grower representatives, rural financial counsellors and other wine sector stakeholders, as part of the Inland Region Profitability Project. The development of the calculator was supported by Wine Australia, with levies from Australia’s grapegrowers and winemakers and matching funds from the Australian Government, and by Food Innovation Australia Ltd.