Produced in collaboration with SBS Chinese
TRANSCRIPT
From the balcony of her Yarra Valley estate, vintner Helen Xu is looking across 70,000 vines. The fields are green and the grapes are plump and almost ready to be harvested.
“We just had a bunch of counting and it turned up about 150 tons. So pretty good. We are just lucky right now till today it's perfect. So what do we do is always keep on checking the weather. How's going to be next 10 days, next 10 days and until middle of February (laughs)”
The sprawling Helen and Joey Estate boasts a new winery, restaurant and 16 -room accommodation building.
It’s the result of 15 years’ hard work for Ms Xu, an industrial chemist who was born in China.
But building this wine business hasn’t been easy - or cheap.
“Tens of millions yeah. Joey and I put everything, every dollar here. We hope the business to increase because the venue we only started in one year ago.”
Ms Xu is among Australia’s 6,000 grape growers and like many exporting to China, felt the pain of tough import tariffs that saw Australia’s annual wine export sales plunge from one-point-two billion dollars to almost zero.
“100 percent stopped. And because we have a small business in China, so luckily we had a little bit of stock there. So that's how we coped a little bit.”
However, after several tough years, that’s all changed.
Wine Australia’s Export Report released on January 29th shows that in the lead up to Lunar New Year celebrations – Australian wine exports to China are tracking up again. Wine Australia’s market insights manager Peter Bailey explains.
“The November figures were just under $100 million and in December it was up closer to $150 million for the month. So, there was definitely an uplift in December. So, the increase in the last few months could be related to the lead in to the festival season in China.”
That’s a relief for Australia’s 2,000 wine producers.
In the nine months since tariffs were removed, between April and December last year 83 million litres of wine worth 902-million dollars went to Mainland China.
And that’s almost half of the global Australian wine exports for the 12 months to end December 2024, which increased by 34 per cent to two-point-five billion dollars.
There is also good news for rock lobster fishers with lobster exports to China of more than half a million kilograms since import bans lifted in December, as Oscar Zheng, Director of Seafood Victoria explains
“Lunar [New] Year is always about family gatherings and happiness times and obviously Lobster is one of the most delicacy in the world, so everybody wants to have the best food in their banquet.”
Even so, the Chinese market has changed in recent years according to Lee McLean ((pron: Mc-LEEN)) CEO of Australian Grape and Wine.
“There's some really fantastic wines being made in China and Chinese consumers are starting to discover those wines and indeed there's been promotional efforts to drink local just as we do here in Australia as well. Certainly, the changes to the Chinese economy as well have had an impact. So people are probably watching their hip pocket a little bit more than they were a few years ago. Wine is a luxury product and there's still strong demand, it's going to be a really important market for us, probably our largest market in the future, but for now it's a little bit of wait and see as to what that looks like for the long term.”
For wine producers like Helen Xu, the wait has been hard and costly, and China’s import bans were not the only challenge in recent years. Her property was affected by an inspect pest that affects grapevines worldwide, called Grape Phylloxera ((Fill-Ox-erra)).
“It is a huge disaster for this region and so much lost. And I think it's not great time for the wine industry lots of people need to make a decision whether going forward or going to have stop.”
Replanting 50-thousand vines has cost Ms Xu around $5-million dollars so far and the returns are slow. As well, the economic crisis has added to running costs and impacted tourism.
“We're still working very hard trying to get over the hump. The restaurant, they contribute a little bit even though we are not profitable because these days the hospitality is not fantastic.”
Chinese tourists are still visiting, keen to see Australian wine production and sample the fruit of the vines. Among them, retail worker ‘Ace’ who’s brough his father from China for a holiday.
“Dad is, this is the first time he come to Australia, so I just take him for a tour to have a look at the beautiful country. Comparing the wine we producing back to our hometown, it's absolutely amazing.”
Ms Xu migrated in 2009, and was born in Eastern China just before the cultural revolution. Her family grew rice and, to meet government quotas, as a young girl she spent long hours labouring in the fields.
'It was from five am when it was still dark. The man, they plant young rice. I was doing that as well. But at the end of it here it just feel broken. My parents, their only dream was we wish you one day, you don't need to work so hard in the field.”
Ms Xu did finally leave the farm to study chemistry at University in China, which also meant challenging gender norms.
“Usually one class have 30 people, 30 kids y’know 30 students and average about three to five girls there. Not balanced, really really not balanced.”
Ms Xu excelled and went on to teach and then work for a large multi-national company. But she has never forgotten the hardships of life for many Chinese workers.
“One time maybe every year to have a meat. That usually happened when the Chinese New Year, the Lunar [New] Year, that was the only, maybe the only day you could have a meat. When I was a little girl I never dreamed one day I could be sitting here in Australia. No way. No way. Because that was in the 60’s, 70’s was a very harsh time.”
While combining chemistry and farming skills has helped Ms Xu to produce premium wine, she can only hope exports continue to climb.
“The whole Chinese population, they still got so much of passion for Australian wine. I strongly believe the market is still quite potential.”
It’s a view shared by Wine Australia’s Peter Bailey.
“Even before the tariffs were introduced, imports from other countries were declining, but Australia was still growing. So, I think what it shows is that Australian wine is very well regarded within the China market and hence, since the tariffs have been removed, there's been a lot of pent up demand to get Australian wines back into that market.”
Good times may be returning, but for anyone wanting to start their own vineyard Helen Xu has this advice.
“The message I would send out is before jumping into this industry, do some research and the second, if you jump in, please have much as much patience as possible.”
