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The Australian wine industry plans  to ditch its image as good value plonk and go dramatically upmarket.

Over the past decade, cheap blends such as Jacob's Creek  and Lindemans  have been phenomenally successful  overseas  and at  home. Australians refer affectionately to bag-in-a-box or cask wine as 'Chateau Cardboard' and eagerly quaff cheap 'shardy' (Chardonnay) and 'cab sav' (Cabernet Sauvignon).

But the industry now hopes to persuade drinkers with more refined palates to open their wallets and delve into  more expensive vintages.

It announced plans this week to increase sales by A$4 billion (HK$25.7 billion) to A$30 billion  within five years by tempting consumers to 'trade-up' to fine wines and regional specialities.

Hong Kong is an important part of the strategy. The city  bought A$23 million worth of Australian wine in 2005, a 22 per cent increase on the year before. But Australia remains  in second place behind France in wine sales.

'We'll be looking to sell higher-priced premium wines to Hong Kong, that's a key opportunity for us,' said Eric Wisgard, a spokesman  for the Australian Wine and Brandy Corporation.

The mainland  is less important - it has a huge wine industry of its own, growing more grapes than Australia, and imports amount to less than a fifth of the total consumption.

'China is a medium- to long-term prospect,' Mr Wisgard said.

The move to promote high-end wine reflects the growing confidence of Australian winemakers. In the 1960s and '70s, Australia was regarded as a New World upstart, if not a joke, by established winemaking  nations such as France and Italy.

But by the 1990s Australia had proved itself as a maker of good, reasonably priced wines. The challenge now is to persuade consumers that there is more to Aussie wine than well-priced plonk.

'When people think of Australian wine they think of value for money, affordable, everyday wine,' Mr Wisgard said. 'That's what we made our name with, but there's a lot more to Australian wine. Our premium wines are up there with the best in the world - they can match anything the French or Italians can make.'

But regardless of the strategy,  Australian wine is set to become more expensive.  The   drought that  has gripped  parts of southern Australia  for six years slashed grape production by 40 per cent this year.

'It's an economic fact that when you have a massive shortage like we've got, you're going to get price movement,' said Kevin McLintock, the head  of an industry taskforce that has spent the past 18 months devising the new wine strategy.

Grape crush production of about 1.9 million tonnes last year  is forecast to drop to 1.3 million tonnes this year.

Price rises would be felt in the US and Britain, which are the largest consumers of Australian wine in value and volume terms, respectively.

Big crush

Australian grape production  last year was (in tonnes) 1.9m



Aussie winemakers drop the plonk and move upmarket