The total grape crush for 2008-09 was 1.7million tonnes, down by 5.4 per cent on the previous year.

The area of grape vines was also 157,000 less in 2008-09 and the yield dropped to 10.7 tonnes per hectare.

Two varieties continued to dominate in Australian vineyards.

Shiraz vines made up more than 45 per cent of the total red grape area, and chardonnay contributed more than 48 per cent of the white total.

South Australia grows more than half of the nation’s red grape vines and just under a third of the total white grape vineyard.

The Australian crush produced 1.2billion litres of wine, down by 5.9 per cent on the previous year’s figure.

Red/rosé wine production was 630 million litres (a drop of 6.8 per cent) and white wine accounted for 542 million litres (down 4.5 per cent).

Exports of Australian produced wine rose 5.2 per cent (to 752 million litres) and domestic sales went up slightly to 430 million litres.

Despite the rise in exports and domestic sales, inventories of beverage wine remained at 1.9 billion litres.

Red/rosé table wine stocks of one billion litres still represent more than half of the beverage wine stock held by winemakers.

The 13 largest winemakers crushed a total of 1.3 million tonnes of grapes, or 73 per cent of the total crush.

These 13 businesses averaged 98,000 tonnes each.

Conversely, the 76 smallest winemakers accounted for only 0.4 per cent of all grapes crushed and averaged 96 tonnes each.

A third of all winemaking locations were in South Australia, accounting for 43 per cent of the national wine grape crush.