Coronavirus: Small wineries’ cups runneth over as domestic tourism booms

Wineries and vineyards are rebounding after the year from hell, riding the domestic tourism boom to see revenue and traffic up ‘200 to 300 per cent’.

Grape harvester Gary Jurd, at a De luliis Wines vineyard at Pokolbin, in the NSW Hunter Valley. Picture: Liam Driver

Domestic tourism is throwing a lifeline to small wineries and vineyards, with revenue for some rising as much as 200 to 300 per cent as capital city residents holiday close to home.

While major wine producers grapple with China’s ongoing ban on exports, smaller wineries are finding their cellar doors bustling as domestic tourists seek experiences in their backyards.

In Orange, wineries have reaped the benefits of the region’s ­allure to tourists. After the March lockdown knocked off cellar door sales, representing up to 80 per cent of some wineries’ income, revenue and traffic rebounded by up to “300 per cent”, says Tom Ward, director of the Orange Region Vignerons ­Association.

“Some of us haven’t had to do any marketing for the last nine months because there’s no need — we’re all full.”

It is an experience Tanya and Nick Seggers, owners of Nashdale Lane Wines, can relate to. After a “nerve-racking” few months in the midst of the lockdown, the winery in Orange is seeing strong demand for cellar-door sales and on-site “glamping” accommodation.

“We’re pretty positive about what 2021 looks like both from a cellar-door point of view (and) hopefully for all the restaurants and bars that have been affected over the past year — hopefully they can have a good year,” Mr Seggers said.

Hunter Valley winemaker and owner Michael De luliis said it was exciting to see the industry bouncing back with customers looking to holiday closer to home. “Not being able to go anywhere else, a lot of people had trips planned, and now people are looking to their own backyard,” he said. “People really want to get out of the city and go to wineries and I believe across NSW it’s been pretty busy.

“It was a bit of a relief — after the fires we weren’t busy and then we got shut down with COVID … to open up in June and see everyone coming back was fabulous.”

Wine writer James Halliday notes many small winery owners were also exporting to China and were badly affected by the bans, making local tourism even more important. “A physical visit to a cellar door, where you like the wine and you like the people — that stays with you a long time. And when you’re next in a restaurant and you see that wine — bang, it’s almost a reflex action,” he said.

 

Recent Tourism Australia data shows domestic visits to regional areas in NSW have increased by almost a third.

This data doesn’t capture the summer period that has seen swaths of regional locations booked out by citysiders.

In the Yarra Valley northeast of Melbourne, wineries are thriving after months in lockdown following the hotel quarantine fiasco.

After a tumultuous nine months, Tony Layton, Seville Estate’s hospitality and experiences manager, said the accommodation part of the business had “never been busier”, but with COVID-19 around the world and Australian wines still black-listed by China, he didn’t expect overseas sales to return to pre-pandemic levels for a considerable time yet.