While the City of Perth is asking patrons to take a maximum of one bottle of wine to foreshore celebrations, Wine Australia wants everyone to get into the Australia Day spirit and make sure it's a local blend.
Whether revellers are celebrating at the Skyworks – where each person is allowed one bottle of wine or six-pack - or at home, Wine Australia regional director Aaron Brasher said it's the day of all days to buy local and stopper declining domestic sales.
Almost 80 per cent of wine sold in Australia is locally-produced, but Wine Australia regional director Aaron Brasher sales of Australian wine have dropped 5.6 per cent over the last five years.
"It's about reinvigorating people with what's in their own backyard," Mr Brasher said.
"We have awareness about eating lamb and doing patriotic things in Australia, but we'd love people for every time they drink a bottle of wine, to think about what country they're buying from."
Sandalford Winery CEO Grant Brinklow admitted the figures were consistent with the experience of Western Australia's South West wine region.
"There's absolutely no doubt, with the proliferation of imported product from right around the world, especially in New Zealand with their kiwi tsunami of sauvignon blanc, has absolutely changed the face of the white wine market in Australia," Sandalford Winery CEO Grant Brinklow said.
"One in three bottles of white wine sold in Australia is New Zealand sauvignon blanc."
Mr Brasher said Australians' parochial nature didn't extend to wine because it was a "product of discovery" and "experimentation".
"Aussies travel a lot and like to experiment and wine is the ultimate product you experiment with," he said.
"There's very little loyal to brands, people are loyal to their wallet first of all."
He said the strong Australian dollar, which was such good news for travelling overseas, was bad news for local producers.
"The Australian dollar works against Australian producers in two ways," he said.
"As a wine-producing country we make 100 million cases per year, 40 million is consumed in Australia.
"With a strong currency that has rapidly slowed [overseas sales], producers had to refocus on the domestic market.
"While all that's happening you've got product from overseas that is so much cheaper by the time it reaches Australian consumers."
While Mr Brasher said the "average consumption increases five notches" on Australia Day, he admitted there was a need for producers to "cut through and find loyalty" as well as with consumers to think about buying local.
"We want parochial consumers to support us, but we have to create a way to cut through and find loyalty," he said.
"It would be very un-Australian to be drinking an Argentinean or Burgundy wine on Australia day.
"It's one day where the experimentation with international wines should pause and the wine-drinking public of Australia need to be reminded we have such a great diverse range of wines from Australia and WA."
