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Cask wine slump sees Accolade factory closure

The steady decline in cask wine purchases will put 10 people out of a job, with Accolade Wines announcing that all cask wine production will take place at its Berri operations.

Yesterday Accolade, formerly Constellation Wines, announced that a shift by consumers to bottled wine had meant a packaging factory at Buronga, south-west NSW, would close this month.

"We've had a very good look at where cask wines sales are going in the future and we think they will continue to decline," Accolade's Anita Pddar told the ABC.

"We source grapes for cask wine from across the Riverland region so that includes from Sunraysia through to the Riverland in South Australia."

The company's Buronga winery would continue to operate, said the company, and local grape growers would be unaffected. Accolade said that most of its current packaging took place at Berri.

"Berri is our major cask packaging operation and this move will increase our efficiency at Berri," global manufacturing director Richard Lloyd told Weekly Times Now.

Last year, Nielsen research showed that cask wine sales made up less than 50 percent of wine sold, down from 60 percent five years ago.

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