First shipment of wine leaves for China since tariffs lifted

The first shipments of Australian wine to China in four years have departed from the Sirromet winery in Queensland.

A whopping 8000 bottles of red wine departed from the company's bottling plant in Mount Cotton, set to reach the port of Shanghai by June.

"That's about $300,000 worth," Sirromet's chief executive Risko Isic told 9News.

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Since China dropped its tariff on Australian wine six weeks ago, producers across Australia are rushing to get back into the market.

"This is a significant development, not just for wine producers, but also for our growers who have been waiting for this moment for a long, long time," Isic said.

Sirromet is Queensland's biggest wine producer.

Grapes are grown on the Granite Belt, near the New South Wales border, then fermented and bottled at Mt Cotton.

While it could take time to reboot the billion-dollar Chinese export market, wine producers couldn't be happier.

"If China does get back to the levels it was pre-covid or pre-tariffs, we would expect China to be the biggest market for Australian wine within the next couple of years again", Paul Turale, general manager at Wine Australia said.

Petit Verdot, a sparkling red wine, is growing in popularity in the Asia-Pacific market.

It has "a little bit of residual sweetness so it pairs beautifully with a lot of Asian foods," Sirromet manager Antje Giebe said.

Australia's wine exports to China were worth about $1.2 billion per year before diplomatic relations soured.

Australian relations with China remain precarious after recent tensions in the Yellow Sea.

The wine industry, however, remains optimistic.

While this is the first export container to leave for China, the team here is already preparing another four for next month.