The day of the lifestyle winery owner is all over, unless you can afford to run your business as a toy. Today it’s clearer than ever that if you want to get into the wine game and stay afloat, you need to develop a business with sales of more than $10 million. A joint benchmarking survey between the Winemakers Federation of Australia and Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu has revealed that wineries with sales below this level are less likely to be profitable or competitive. It’s also fair to state that unless Australia’s multitude of small wineries receive some form of taxation break, they may cease to employ the large number of people that they do, cease to create high-quality tourism and leisure options for visitors, and in many cases, simply cease to exist. I am a strong supporter of the WFA’s policy for a tax break on the 29% WET up to the first 600,000 litres of domestic wine sales.
