It’s a tricky time to be a winemaker in Western Australia; the cost of glass bottles, labour and transport have all gone up.
There is an estimated 262 million litres of excess wine around the country. People are, both by choice and by circumstance, drinking less.
Come July 1, WA’s winemakers and distillers say things are going to get trickier still when wine and spirit bottles becoming eligible for 10-cent refunds as part of the Containers for Change program.
On face value, the change reads like good news: what’s not to like about incentivising people to keep glass out of landfill?
But WA winemakers say what wasn’t discussed during last year’s campaign to expand Containers for Change was the effect it would have on producers, and how it would flow on to consumers.
The Friends of WA Wine lobby group claims a 10-cent refund on a bottle of wine – or spirits – could cost consumers an extra $1.25 per bottle.
While the container deposit scheme fee payable by producers is 14 cents per bottle – although Containers for Change is a government initiative, it is also funded by beverage suppliers – the $1.25 calculation considers the additional margins added as the bottle passes through the supply chain. (Wines purchased at cellar door or direct from the winery will not be subject to the same add-on.)
Winemakers are concerned about how consumers will respond to the price hike, considering the challenges currently being faced by the wine industry.
There is also the not-so-small issue of additional paperwork required by the scheme.
“Often in small wineries there are one or two people wearing lots of different hats, from farming and making the wine to selling it,” said Nic Peterkin, the founder of award-winning Margaret River winery, LAS Vino.
“This adds another complicated layer of administrative burden to an industry already drowning in it.
“The container deposit scheme has been created by a group of bureaucrats that have never stepped foot into a small winery and don’t understand how challenging it will be for an industry already struggling.”
Although Queensland added wine and spirit bottles to its Containers for Change program in 2023, WA is the first of the major wine-producing states to expand its recycling program in a similar way, although traditional winemaking powerhouses South Australia and New South Wales plan to implement the change in 2027.
Because the 10-cent refund isn’t national, it has the potential for a scenario where WA producers could end up selling their wines for more in their home state than elsewhere in the country.
For larger producers that deal with chains that want consistent national pricing, this means either absorbing this additional cost or not being picked up by the big players.
“WA has this fantastic wine industry that makes world-class wines,” said Natalie Burch, general manager of Howard Park Wines and a member of Friends of WA Wine.
“We just want fairness so that we can compete nationally. We want good outcomes for the environment, industry and the consumer.”
WA distillers will also be affected by planned changes to the program – potentially even more so.
While most of WA’s wineries are in the South West, distilleries are dotted across the state from Esperance up to Kununurra, with regional producers also doubling as key tourism attractions.
Not only will distillers have to contend with similar costs as their winemaking brethren in July, August sees them hit with one of their two annual spirit excise tax increases.
“The emission reductions will come when you look after the land and the environment. Glass is one thing, but all of it needs to change.”
Vanya Cullen, Cullen Wines
Great Southern Distilling Company founder Cameron Syme said most of the bottles he and other distillers used were of a higher grade than the standard-issue wine and beer bottles, and needed to be recycled through specialised facilities.
“It’s an unfortunate cost that small regional businesses will have to endure that doesn’t achieve the outcome that it’s designed to,” Syme said.
Many producers have also taken issue with the one-size-fits-all approach to sustainability.
Larry Cherubino, the co-owner of Cherubino Wines along with his wife Edwina, said it stung that investing the time and capital to become one of the country’s first carbon-neutral wineries counted for nothing, with all WA producers required to be part of the program or face hefty fines.
“We’ve done the right thing and invested all this money in reducing our carbon footprint but aren’t being supported,” Cherubino said.
“[This decision] is tone-deaf. It puts WA producers at an unfair advantage when we’re already 3500 kilometres from most of our major markets and will hurt an industry that brings a lot of value to regional WA.”
Vanya Cullen, the esteemed matriarch of Margaret River’s Cullen Wines, has long walked the sustainability talk with Cullen, being one of the region’s high-profile early adopters of biodynamic winemaking.
Like most producers, she lamented the extra admin this scheme would create and wished environmental policy took a broader approach.
“People aren’t looking at the big picture,” Cullen said.
“There’s this specific focus on reducing carbon emissions when we should be focussing on looking after all the land.
“The emission reductions will come when you look after the land and the environment. Glass is one thing, but all of it needs to change.”
Producers want the government to delay adding wine and spirit bottles to Containers for Change, with a petition from Friends of WA Wine to be presented to ministerial decision-makers gathering steam.
The Friends of WA Wine website estimates that adding wine to Containers for Change will increase the bottle recovery rate from the 65 per cent via kerbside collection to the scheme’s target of 67 per cent.
“As a consumer, I’d be willing to pay more if in knew it was achieving legitimate environmental outcomes,” says Burch.
“This isn’t. But if the industry and the government work together, we can make this scheme better for WA.”
Max Veenhuyzen is a journalist and photographer who has been writing about food, drink and travel for national and international publications for more than 20 years. He reviews restaurants for the Good Food Guide.