Dan Repacholi (Hunter, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

Wines, mines and equines—these are three great industries that I'm proud to have in my electorate, the Hunter. Today I rise to speak about the wine industry and, in particular, what an important industry it is! First off, almost 4,000 people are directly or indirectly employed by the wine industry in the Hunter. That's roughly five per cent of all working people. There are all sorts of jobs tied to this industry: jobs for those who grow grapes, jobs for those who make wine itself, jobs waiting tables at wineries, jobs providing tastings and jobs providing accommodation for visitors—so many jobs.

There are over 1,800 visitor economy businesses registered in the Hunter, and many hundreds of these employ the thousands of workers in the wine industry. They are viticulture, winemaking, cellar door, restaurant, accommodation and tourist attraction businesses. One of the things that is very special about the workers in this industry is that they are people of a wide range of ages, with both young and old workers involved in the process of making wine. This is an industry where knowledge is being transferred from the older generations down to the younger generations. Knowledge has been passed down like this for a very long time.

In fact, there's nowhere else in Australia where wine has been made longer than in the Hunter. We've been making wine in the Hunter for almost 200 years. We are the oldest wine region in Australia. Those South Australians make a lot of claims when it comes to wine—all of which I strongly disagree with!—but they can never claim that the wine regions of South Australia are the oldest or more prestigious than the Hunter Valley. We also have heritage plant stocks of international significance, such as shiraz from 1867, semillon from 1899 and chardonnay from 1908. This is one of the oldest chardonnay vineyards in the world.

Today the wine industry has grown into an economic powerhouse, generating over $641 million in economic value to the Hunter Valley annually. The Hunter Valley's vineyards have also grown in landmass, making up 2,376,000 hectares of vineyards. We are now known as wine country for a good reason: because this is bigger than some of the countries around the world. Our vineyards are almost 10 times the size of the Vatican City and Monaco put together. The numbers are mind-blowing. They provide over 6,000 tonnes of grapes grown by 155 grape growers, which are crushed into wine at over 150 wineries and winemaking enterprises. We produce a fifth of Australia's chardonnay and a whopping quarter of Australia's shiraz.

If you're drinking some wine from the Hunter Valley and think to yourself: 'Far out! This is good. There has to be something special about this,' well, there is. Not only are the wines made in the beautiful Hunter Valley by the amazing, knowledgeable people of the Hunter but the soils in which the grapes are grown were finely and perfectly developed over millions of years to make them ideal for viticulture. Underneath the stunning grapevines lie red rocks with bits of shell and other fossils embedded into them. These rocks are known as 'bryozoan', and vineyards all around the Hunter are littered with them. This didn't just happen overnight. This is a process that occurred over the last 280 million years, way back when the Hunter Valley was covered up by the sea in the form of a huge gulf. Over time, the gulf was filled up with materials washed in from surrounding areas, and it became a swampy vegetation.

The soil itself is some of the rarest in the world. It's known as the 'terra rossa' or 'red earth', which is clay over limestone. This forms when carbonite materials leach out of the limestone, breaking into iron deposits, oxidising and turning the soil into a rustic red colour. This is a complex process that takes time to occur. Limestone helps to grow vines that are balanced, and this is why it is highly prized amongst wine growers. The very best soils for vineyards in the world have limestone—just look at Burgundy in France, even the Coonawarra—but very few have the Hunter's combination of limestone and ancient fossils lying on a prehistoric ocean floor.

Nowhere can quite compete with the Hunter Valley when talking about the best places in the world to grow wine. Clearly, it's no fluke that the Hunter Valley has the best wine in the world, and no-one will take that title for at least the next couple of hundred million years, because that's how long it takes to make wine this good. In fact, last week one of the Hunter's best-known winemakers, Bruce Tyrrell from Tyrrells vineyards, took home the prestigious National Wine Show of Australia award for the best semillon in Australia for its 2019 Pokolbin Hills semillon. Our excellent product has turned the Hunter into one of the most visited wine destinations in Australia. For over 1.6 million overnight visitors annually and over one million additional day-tripping tourists each year we provide some of the most delicious wines in the world.

I'm convinced that this is one of the greatest wine-growing areas in the world, and that's why people from overseas are buying wine from the Hunter. Each year over 230,000 litres of wine is exported from the Hunter, heading to destinations like the United Kingdom, Japan, France and the United States. Seventy per cent of Australian wine is exported at a wholesale price of less than $5 a bottle, but the average wholesale price per litre for exported Hunter wine is $32.60. Our wine is delicious and something special. The world knows that, and it's reflected in these prices.

I'm proud of this industry because it is a resilient industry. The 2019-20 summer bushfires had a devastating impact on the vineyards. Just four years ago these bushfires hit the Hunter hard. A total area of 4,095 square kilometres was burnt by bushfires, representing 19 per cent of the Hunter functional economic region, and 144 properties were damaged or destroyed. The bushfires caused telecommunications outages, road closures and rail connectivity disruptions. Over 90 per cent of the Hunter Valley's 2020 wine vintage was lost due to smoke taint, and the fires took a toll on the health and wellbeing of wine industry workers and the wider community. Thankfully, post-bushfires and post-pandemic the industry is back on track. Business is booming, and local producers are experimenting with emerging and re-emerging varieties of grape like pinot gris, pinot grigio, fiano, gewurztraminer, cabernet franc, barbera and sangiovese.

I'd like to thank both Cessnock City Council and Singleton Council for the work they've done with the Hunter Valley Wine and Tourism Association to put together the Hunter Valley Destination Management Plan, a plan which will help us write the next chapter of the story of the Hunter wine industry. The plan presents a vision for the future development of the Hunter, which will attract more tourists for a wide variety of activities—pairing wine with music events, for example. Vineyards in the Hunter have hosted some of the biggest names in world entertainment, from Elton John, Whitney Houston, Cold Chisel and Andrea Bocelli to one of my favourite bands, the Killers. These names and so many more come to our region to host massive concerts, which attract tens of thousands of tourists and fans. These events are huge for our region and are yet another example of what makes our famous wine industry in the Hunter so good. Without the wine industry and the enormous reputation it has for itself, events like this would never happen.

The Hunter Valley wine country is heaven on earth. There's nothing better than driving through our beautiful landscapes with endless views of grapes running into the horizon, topped off with the highest-quality and best-tasting wine in the world. I love escaping to these amazing wineries whenever I get the chance. I love taking my wife whenever I can, and I'm also bringing visitors to the Hunter, like the French ambassador, His Excellency Jean-Pierre Thebault. If you haven't visited the Hunter Valley, please make sure you do, because you're missing out. Get yourself to one of our multiple wineries and cellar doors, feast on some tasty food and enjoy yourself in our area. With almost 4,000 people employed, 200 years of history, 2,376 acres of vineyards producing over 6,000 tonnes of grapes, millions of tourists each year, 230 litres of wine exported and $641 million of economic value, the wine industry has well and truly helped put the Hunter on the map, and it continues to do that today. A massive shout-out to Jennie Curran and Stu Hordern from the Hunter Valley Wine and Tourism Association for all the great work they do, and a massive thankyou to all the amazing people involved in the wine industry and in making the Hunter what it is today.

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