Winestate magazine has covered its last vintage and will no longer be published

Winestate magazine, which has covered Australia’s wine industry since the late 1970s, has published its final edition.

A historic photo of Winestate editor Peter Simic judging Tasmanian wine back in 2009.

Wine industry bible Winestate magazine will no longer be published after a 45 year run, with founding editor Peter Simic saying competition from online outlets and the travails of the industry itself had made it unsustainable.

The Adelaide-based publication was launched in 1978, when, Mr Simic says, you could conceivably try wines made by every one of the nation’s 171 wine and brandy producers if you set you mind to it.

These days, with Australia boasting more than 2000 wineries, including some of the world’s major producers, that task would be monumental, if not impossible.

Mr Simic published the magazine’s last edition online, and said the brand and the website would be maintained, keeping open the possibility of one off or special publications online

“We had a very long run, most interesting, it’s been a great journey,’’ Mr Simic said.

“It’s not so much retiring. We still have our family retreat and our own little vineyard and brand so we’ll spend a little time with that.’’

Mr Simic said publishing the printed version of the product was now financially unsustainable.

“There was a major change in the last few years, particularly with Covid.

But the major change was the ability get content for free online, Mr Simic said.

“We moved stratospherically online and we developed relationships with all the major consumer authorities and educational bodies

“We ended up with 500,000 online which is by far the biggest audience for a wine magazine ( in Australia) but the problem was most of that is cost-free, so while the audience was huge, it didn’t help us much financially.’’

Mr Simic said over the decades the industry had weathered a number of recessions and the vagaries of oversupply issues, and was now facing the challenge of competing with major, vertically integrated companies, who both produced wine and sold their own labels through their own major chains such as Dan Murphy’s.

People are in an extraordinary position right now, there’s so much good wine out there and the prices are so competitive, that’s not so good for producers for obvious reasons’’ he said

“And the big boys now are producing their own wines and cutting out the smaller wineries.’’

Winestate magazine was also briefly famous in 2009 when Richard Wayne Phillips hit then-premier Mike Rann with a rolled copy of the magazine, claiming the premier was having an affair with his wife Michelle Chantelois - a claim the premier denied.

When asked what his favourite wine was, Mr Simic said diplomatically, “My next one’’.

Originally published as Winestate magazine has covered its last vintage and will no longer be published