Grape growers in South Australia's Riverland have rejected an offer from one of Australia's largest wine companies to sell part of their contracts. The offer aimed to help people leave the industry amid a global oversupply, but growers say it wasn't enough to help them transition.
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00:00 Hundreds of growers gathered near Barmara with the future of their industry in the riverland on the agenda.
00:08 They voted almost unanimously to reject a proposal from multinational company Accolade Wines.
00:14 We're not happy with them because what they're offering us, that's the mean offering they are starting to play with us.
00:23 The proposal would have allowed growers to sell part of their red wine contracts for $4,000 a hectare,
00:30 reduce contract lengths and cut the volume of grapes Accolade accepts by 20%.
00:35 $4,000 is nothing. What do you do with the $4,000? That's the cost only. We don't cover the cost even to pull the grapes.
00:42 I think the vote last night offered just a little bit of security back into the region.
00:48 The growers make up the near century old cooperative, which acknowledges the frayed relationship between growers and Accolade will need to be rebuilt.
00:57 We need to offer value to a major customer which is Accolade Wines and we've done that in the past and I can see how we can do that in the future.
01:06 Accolade Wines is yet to comment on the decision.
01:09 The 540 plus members of the cooperative supply about 10% of Australia's wine grapes.
01:16 Now the industry is banking on financial support from governments to address the oversupply, with more than 500 million litres of red wine in storage.
01:26 It's an industry at a crossroads.
01:28 [BLANK_AUDIO]