NZ overtakes Australia in wine exports to United States

The value of New Zealand's wine imports in the United States has eclipsed Australia for the first time.

Rabobank's latest Wine Quarterly report has revealed the value of imports from New Zealand grew by 11% to reach $US399.8million while imports of Australian wine fell 9% to $US351.7million.

Rabobank senior analyst Marc Soccio noted: "Australia is a much larger exporter to the US in terms of volume, but by value New Zealand has just overtaken Australia," he told ABC News.

"It is a David and Goliath situation just because of the size of the New Zealand industry ... it is roughly 20% the size in terms of production.

"New Zealand has been experiencing very rapid growth over the last four or five years into that market, and by contrast the Australian industry has struggled to a large extent to build on the foundation it established some time ago."

Soccio put the result down to premiumisation. While the US imported more than twice the volume of Australian wine, New Zealand wine cost more than two and a-half times the price of Australian wine on average.

"Post-GFC there was a big move down-market by consumers just for pure economic reasons, but that stabilised and since then there has been a shift up-market for various reasons in the US," he said.

"The focus in terms of consumers has been in consuming a more premium wines and that has certainly played into the hands of the New Zealand industry."

Chief Executive of the Winemakers Federation of Australia, Tony Battaglene, admitted the result is something the Australian industry needed to rectify.

"They have worked very hard on it and they deserve the success, but it is success we should also be targeting and, in fact, we will be doing a lot more increased efforts into that market in the coming years," he said. "The future of the Australian industry is at higher price points."