Aussie dollar hurts wine exports

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The Australian Wine and Brandy Corporation says the climbing Australian dollar has hurt the country's wine exports during the past year.

Figures from the corporation show the volume of wine exported fell by 8.5 per cent for the 12 months until the end of April.

While exports of bottled wine grew by 17 million litres, the overall volume of exported wine fell by 67 million litres.

The United States remained the country's second largest market despite falls of 18 percent in volume and 15 percent in value.

Lawrie Stanford from the Wine and Brandy Corporation says it is no coincidence that the US market has fallen.

"The US is a key market for Australian wine and one that we would hope to grow," he said.

"It's one of the currencies that we're growing strongest against and losing competitiveness and add to that the US is very sensitive to exchange rate movements."

Mr Stanford says the drop in exports was due largely to the high exchange rates.

"The Australian dollar is appreciating against most currencies in the world as it is, and now what that's doing is meaning that we're losing competitiveness in overseas markets," he said.