The national Vineyard Scan of 2018, a project funded by Wine Australia, took place to scan winegrape vineyards in Australia. They have recently shared their report revealing astonishing results.

The results have been gathered via computer algorithm to scan aerial imagery and detect vineyards without human intervention. The project has been undertaken by Consilium Technology on behalf of Wine Australia and will be repeated for three years from 2018-2020.

Here is a quick summary of the report:

The National Vineyard Scan 2018 found the total area of winegrape vineyards in Australia to be 146,128 hectares. This compares with 135,133 hectares reported by the ABS in the last vineyard survey conducted in 2014.

The increase of 11,000 hectares nationally in four years is less than 2% average annual growth rate, indicating only very moderate increases in plantings over that timeframe.

The total vinerow length measured was 463,718 km, representing an overall average across all vineyards of 3.17 km/ha. The state with the highest vine density (vinerows per hectare) was Tasmania, and the lowest were New South Wales and Queensland.

To put that into prespective, the distance between Earth and the Moon is 384,400km.

Find out more here.