South Australian wine maker, Wolf Blass is calling upon the SA government to focus on one of the state’s most renowned commodities – wine – in an effort to forge a new identity for the state on the world stage.
Wolfgang Blass, who founded the Wolf Blass winery in the Barossa Valley in 1966, has a vision for South Australia to become exclusively known as the ‘Wine State’ by focusing on the production of premium quality food and wine Adelaide Now reports.
"Gourmet wine and food is what we do best and what we should be offering to the world,” said Blass.
"We need to stop talking about mining booms and car manufacturing, and festivals of art in this state. We just need to settle once and for all that we are the Wine State and get on with selling ourselves."
According to Blass, SA makes up for 55 percent of Australian wine exports, which equates to 500 million bottles each year.
"When you think that on average a bottle of wine is consumed by four people, that’s around two billion people a year in the world enjoying a glass of our product,” he said.
"That's a massive opportunity that we're wasting."
Blass said that the industry will be calling upon support from independent senator Nick Xenophon to push for changes to wine tax policy and the wine equalisation tax – a value-based tax on wine consumed in Australia that applies to 29 percent of the value of the wine at the last wholesale sale before adding GST.
"I think we are relying pretty heavily on Nick and a couple of other senators to get involved and get this situation changed," said Blass.
"We desperately need to restructure and get extra money coming in for the promotion of Australian wine overseas."