Last month, the Endeavour Group (owner of Dan Murphys, BWS, several wineries and lots of pubs) dropped off a huge set of retail wine industry insights for zero dollars. Nudda. I’m still intrigued that the group would let such valuable data out into the wild (even with vague numbers and lots of figure-less trend lines), but the special release of the Group’s ‘Distilled’ newsletter offered up plenty of assumption-confirming information that was worth a close look (it’s right here).
For just one useful bit, head to page 30 to see the changing sales share of different wine varieties and packaging formats over time.
The winners are predictable for anyone who has walked through a Dan Murphys lately. As you can see in the graph below, Prosecco and rosé are on the up, while cask wine and Sauvignon Blanc are going backward.
What’s even more interesting, however, is some of the styles that aren’t going anywhere.
Chardonnay, I’m looking at you.
Sauvignon Blanc claims the mantle as Australia’s most consumed white grape in off-premise sales (according to Wine Australia data released in 2024), but Chardonnay isn’t declining (based on the Endeavour trend line at least). Intiguingly, Chardonnay was actually Australia’s most crushed grape of any colour in 2024 (but fell back behind Shiraz in this year’s harvest), which is as much a nod to the role of Chardonnay as a key export grape.
Digging further into the report, Chardonnay is also revealed as the second most popular wine ‘segment’ in Woollahra and Mosman LGAs (after Champagne) – arease which include some of Australia’s wealthiest suburbs and some of the most wine-soaked addresses in the country (indeed, 11 of the top 15 LGAs for Endeavour Group wine sales nationally are located in NSW, mostly Sydney metro).
I don’t have enough scan data to dig too much further (please send it to me if you have it!), but it’s not a long bow to say that premium Chardonnay is doing just fine.
Speaking of, should we take a look at a few classy modern Chardies that have passed the desk this month? Let’s dive into the tang:
Subscribe to continue reading
Subscribe to get access to the rest of this post and other subscriber-only content.
Help keep this site paywall free – donate here
You might also like
