Struth! 30 million glasses of wine a day

IN his continuing search for the more weird, wacky and wondrous in the world of travel, David Ellis says that 30-million glasses of Australian wines are now consumed here and around the world every day of the year.

That’s nearly 11-billion glasses annually, making us Number 4 on the list of the world’s Top Ten wine exporting countries, behind Italy that’s Number 1, France and Spain.

And now Wine Australia, the Australian Government authority whose job it is to get even more people sipping Australian reds, whites, bubblies and fortifieds, has declared April as Aussie Wine Month, and is urging us to visit local wine regions and when there to buy up big, to order Australian-label wines we’ve not tried before when dining out, and to take part in around 100 wine-related events around the country.

Because, it points out, the local industry is now worth $4.3-billion to the economy every year, employs 52,000 people in 2,400 wineries and on 6,200 vineyards, and that we now have no fewer than 65 winemaking regions across the country.

If you want to know where some of those 100 Aussie Wine Month events are being held in April, go to www.apluswines.com