Australian wine exports to Southeast Asia grew 11 per cent in value to AUD 374 million in 2025, the single largest regional contributor to export growth. Mainland China rebounded from near-zero to AUD 258 million in the year ended March 2026, after Beijing removed anti-dumping duties on 29 March 2024. Wine Australia is now running education seminars and trade roadshows across Vietnam, Thailand, Indonesia, the Philippines, China and Japan.
The recovery rests on diversification, not a single market. Asia now takes 40 per cent of Australia’s wine export value — a share the industry is fighting to defend against New World rivals.
The number that matters is not the China rebound. It is AUD 374 million — the value of Australian wine sold into Southeast Asia in 2025, up 11 per cent on the year before.
China makes the headlines. Mainland imports jumped from AUD 11 million to AUD 258 million in twelve months once tariffs came off. That is a dramatic chart. It is also a single market the industry has been burned by once already.
So the quieter figure does the real work. Vietnam, Thailand, Indonesia and the Philippines are now where Wine Australia is spending its time, its government grants and its educators. The bet is that slow, market-by-market growth across ASEAN buys insurance the China boom cannot. Whether the spending earns its keep is the question the export figures will answer.
The market Australia is building to survive the next shock
Total Australian wine exports were worth AUD 1.98 billion globally in the year to December 2025 — down 2 per cent. Strip out Asia and that decline is steeper. The region is now carrying the rest of the export book.
Rachel Triggs, General Manager for Regulation and Market Access at Wine Australia, said growth in Southeast Asia is helping offset slower demand in traditional destinations and underpins longer-term diversification. The figures back her. Vietnam rose 12 per cent to AUD 24 million. Thailand climbed 9 per cent to AUD 30 million.
Japan tells a subtler story. It took AUD 53 million of Australian still wine in 2025, growing 5 per cent. Shin Saito, Senior Researcher at Japan’s National Research Institute of Brewing, noted that younger Japanese drinkers are shifting toward lighter, lower-alcohol wines — a gap imported producers are moving to fill.
The promotional machine is built to match. The Australian Wine Pavilion at Vinexpo Asia in Hong Kong fielded 60 exhibitors and roughly 600 wines, drawing trade from 76 markets. The Australian Wine Roadshow China 2026 ran through Beijing, Nanjing and Changsha, pulling over 1,200 trade and media attendees. Sarah Roberts, Wine Australia’s Regional Manager for Asia Pacific, frames the strategy as building the knowledge and confidence of influential buyers so they sell Australian wine locally. The question is whether tastings convert to contracts. The export numbers are documented; the return on the marketing spend is not yet.
One policy signature reset the entire trade
The China collapse was never about taste. On 29 March 2024, Beijing removed anti-dumping and countervailing duties under a World Trade Organization-consistent review, restoring normal treatment under the China–Australia Free Trade Agreement. The duties had run as high as 218 per cent. Their removal explains the entire rebound — no marketing campaign moves a market from AUD 11 million to AUD 258 million in a year.
That is exactly why the industry refuses to celebrate it. The 2020 tariffs taught a single lesson: one market, one government decision, and a billion-dollar trade vanishes. Lee McLean, Chief Executive of Australian Grape & Wine, called the removal a critical chance to re-engage China “while continuing to diversify into other growing markets.” The second clause is the strategy.
Rabobank’s 2025 sector report argued Asia-Pacific will stay the primary growth engine for Australian wine this decade — on one condition. Diversification beyond China has to continue. The CPTPP wine provisions help, easing certification into Japan, Vietnam and Singapore.
Rivals are already recalibrating. New Zealand is defending Sauvignon Blanc shelf space through generic roadshows, while Chile pushes value-for-money supply into Vietnam and the Philippines to dodge head-to-head fights in top-tier cities. So the AUD 374 million figure is the one to watch, not the China chart. It is the number that says whether Australia has learned the lesson, or simply gone back to the well that ran dry.
Beyond the headline
The bigger picture
The push into Asia-Pacific is less about short-term sales than about rewiring Australia’s export model away from dependence on one market. By embedding education programs, sustainability narratives and premium positioning, the sector is using Asia as a testing ground for a higher-value, less cyclical model it could later replicate in North America and Europe.
The money trail
Behind the roadshows and tastings sits a sizeable transfer of public money into branding and market development. Government viability funds lower the upfront cost of experimenting in riskier markets, while the commercial upside accrues mainly to a small group of scalable wineries and distributors able to lock in long-term contracts.
The reach
The same platforms that introduce Australian labels to sommeliers in Bangkok or Osaka are shaping airline lists, hotel chains and e-commerce sites. As large hospitality groups standardise beverage programs across Asia, decisions made in a few corporate headquarters ripple into hundreds of venues, subtly shifting what middle-class consumers think of as a typical glass of imported wine.
Where the export bet lands for you
With Asia now carrying 40 per cent of Australia’s wine export value and the next annual export report due January 2027, three readers have decisions to make.
- Equity investors in Australian beverage stocks
Review Treasury Wine Estates’ latest investor presentation at tweglobal.com to see how management is positioning premium brands in China versus Southeast Asia over the next two to three years. Weigh the 14 per cent Asia ex-China EBITS growth against the renewed concentration risk a strong China rebound creates.
- Trade and supply-chain professionals
Consult the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade FTA portal for tariff and certification settings on wine in CPTPP members like Japan, Vietnam and Singapore. These conditions determine medium-term margins more than any roadshow, and they are publicly documented.
- Wine buyers and importers in Asia
Watch Wine Australia’s education seminars scheduled across Vietnam, Thailand, Indonesia and the Philippines through 2026. They target trade buyers directly, and the lighter, food-friendly styles being pushed reflect where unit values are heading.
Explainer
- ASEAN
- The Association of Southeast Asian Nations, a ten-member regional bloc including Vietnam, Thailand, Indonesia and the Philippines. Its combined population exceeds 670 million, with a fast-growing middle class driving imported-goods demand. For Australian wine, ASEAN markets like Vietnam and Thailand posted double-digit value growth in 2025, making the bloc the industry’s chosen hedge against single-market exposure.
- CPTPP
- The Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership, a trade pact among eleven Pacific Rim economies including Japan, Vietnam and Singapore. It includes wine-specific provisions that simplify certification and recognise oenological practices across members. These technical disciplines lower the cost of getting Australian wine onto Asian shelves, an advantage rival exporters outside the agreement do not share.
- China–Australia Free Trade Agreement
- A bilateral trade deal in force since 2015, abbreviated ChAFTA, that originally eliminated Chinese tariffs on Australian wine. Those benefits were effectively suspended when Beijing imposed anti-dumping duties of up to 218 per cent in 2020. The March 2024 removal of those duties restored ChAFTA’s normal treatment, triggering the rebound to AUD 258 million in annual imports.
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