Where does all the money go?

HAVE you ever wondered how much of the cost of a bottle of wine ends up in the producer’s pocket?

New research released by Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu and the Winemakers Federation of Australia shows that the producer’s profit from a $10 bottle of wine is just 70 cents.

The biggest share of that $10 – which is the retail price tag – goes to the Federal Government, with tax haul of 29 per cent.

The average retail margin, according to the study of wineries ranging from minnows to Australia’s giants for 2001, was 23 per cent.

But it is not all as bad as it sounds with wine producers taking $4.30 for every $10 bottle – with $3.60 of that representing costs from the grapes to the label, leaving a 19.4 per cent margin.

A breakdown of costs shows that the grapes in a $10 bottle of wine cost $1.30 on average while the oak is only 10 cents.