Dear Australia Wine Grape Growers - STOP IT WITH ALL THE GRAPES!

Australia's wine market has been booming since they started making some wines that are actually good. They've also done a great job at establishing new markets around the world to sell their goods, including the U.S. but also the UK and China.

The problem started coming about when farmers saw this as the new cash crop (it beat the hell out of sheering sheep) and started planting wine grapes. The problem now is that so much has been planted, they've run out of people who can buy it.

It usually costs AU$200 to $800 to produce a metric tonne of grapes. Prices for next season's crop are going to be about AU$100 to $150 per metric tonne. I'm no mathmetician, but I'm pretty sure there's not much profit there.

The industry body Wine Grape Growers Australia has gone so far as to tell people to not grow anything at all in this upcoming season. The less people that grow, the closer they might get to breaking even.

The good news? Wait, there is no good news if you're a grower. They expect this problem to go "on and on." The consumer might find good news in the fact that we may see wines that taste better than Two Buck Chuck coming from Australia for about the same price.

Rock bottom price warning for growers - [news.com.au]

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