prominent winemakers.

A shrinking market, the collapse of American distributors and the recovering Australian dollar are all combining to throw the wine industry into chaos and threatening Griffith’s previously prosperous wineries. The greatest concern for many wineries is many distributors in the United States are going under, according to Westend’s Bill Calabria.

“What’s happening on the global market is everyone’s pushed the panic button, and there are quite a few businesses that are really struggling,” he said.

“We’ve found particularly in the states that the distributors are struggling to get the finance to pay for wine.” But Mr Calabria has found the looming recession means that many people have stopped buying wine.

“People aren’t buying such luxuries as wine, and what’s happening is the distributor previously bought a container, when now he only wants to buy half a container, so it becomes a chain reaction,” he said.

“We thought things would improve with the dollar coming down, but it hasn’t helped the situation.”

It will be a rough few years for wineries in Griffith, according to De Bortoli Wines managing director Darren De Bortoli.

“There’s no indication to say the future looks anything but disastrous,” he said. “2010 might be a different ball game, but at the moment it’s not looking too pretty.”

Adding even more pressure is the prospect of a massive vintage in 2009, which Mr De Bortoli believed will lead to a glut.

“I was talking to one winemaker who reckoned grape prices will drop by half,” he said.

“The worst thing for the growers right now is to have a good crop.” But Mr Calabria is hopeful the election of Barack Obama may prove to be a circuit-breaker for the downward spiralling world market.

“Obama has won the election, but it’s still a few months before he actually takes office,” he said.

“But once he takes over he’s not going to wave the magic wand and fix everything.”

Mr Calabria has warned growers to tighten their belts for difficult times.