Label Integrity Program record keeping: what Australian growers and wineries must keep

Nobody is forced to put a vintage, a variety or a region on an Australian wine label. But the moment you do, you need an auditable trail of records that proves it. That is the Label Integrity Program (LIP), set out in Part VIA of the Wine Australia Act 2013 and administered by Wine Australia. It is not a form you lodge each year; it is a standard your own paperwork has to meet whenever an inspector asks. This guide follows Wine Australia’s current LIP guidance.

Who the LIP applies to

Wine Australia lists four groups, which between them cover almost the whole supply chain:

• Wine grape growers.
• Manufacturers of wine goods: wineries, packagers and processing facilities.
• Anyone who supplies or receives wine goods, including wholesale, retail and export sellers.
• Agents who take possession of wine goods.

A grower-maker who crushes their own fruit and sells from the cellar door sits in several of these at once, and needs records for each step.

One step forward, one step back

The principle is simple: each business records where the goods came from and where they went. Records must be made within three days, and the LIP does not prescribe a format — paper, spreadsheet or software are all fine, as long as the content is there.

If you claim it on the label, you must be able to prove it from your records — and LIP records must be kept for seven years.

What each record must contain

When you supply wine goods (fruit, juice, bulk or packaged wine), the record shows who made it, the date of supply, the type and quantity of goods, the vintage, variety and geographical indication (GI), and the name and address of the person receiving them. A grower supplying fruit must also send an accompanying written record with it.

When you receive wine goods, you record the same details from the other side: who made the record, the supplier’s and receiver’s names and addresses, the date received, the quantity, and the vintage, variety and GI.

When you process or modify wine goods — the part that matters most inside a winery — the record covers:

• The steps taken and the date of each one.
• The individually identifiable vessels involved (every tank and barrel needs its own ID).
• Volume gains and losses, including water added to high-sugar juice or must.
• Any change in vintage, variety or GI that results, such as a blend or barrel topping with a different wine.

That last point is where a lot of wineries come unstuck. Topping a barrel of 2025 Shiraz with a bit of 2024 Grenache is a composition change, and it has to be visible in the records so the final label claim can still be checked.

The blending rules your records must support

The LIP exists to support the blending rules in the Wine Australia Regulations 2018. As Wine Australia summarises them:

• A single vintage, variety or region claim requires at least 85% of the wine to come from the named vintage, variety or region.
• Combined GI claims must together make up at least 95% of the wine, each GI claimed must be more than 5%, they must appear in descending order, and no more than three GIs can be claimed.
• Any claim must be listed in descending order of its proportion in the wine.
• Fruit harvested between 1 September and 31 December counts towards the following calendar year’s vintage.
• Only variety names recognised by the OIV, UPOV or IPGRI lists can be used.

Wine Australia is clear that there are no tolerances or exemptions to these rules. Your blend sheets and vessel records are what show you met them.

Vintage intake: where most records start

Wine Australia’s own vintage tips focus on the weighbridge and receival documents, because that is where the trail begins:

• Record the vineyard address and the GI for fruit received. A supplier’s postal address is useful for accounts but does not verify where the fruit was grown.
• Reference the cart and weighbridge notes in your electronic records.
• Do not abbreviate. Write Cabernet Sauvignon, not “Cab”; Pinot Noir, not “Pinot”; Limestone Coast, not “LC”.
• For Murray Darling, state whether the fruit came from Victoria or New South Wales.
• If you only take fruit from your own vineyard, note on the record book which block the records apply to.
• Train the vintage crew: everyone writing dockets needs to know what has to be on them.

Inspections and penalties

Wine Australia carries out LIP inspections, and failing to back a label claim with records is itself an offence. The Act creates offences for failing to keep sufficient records, knowingly making a false record, and failing to verify a claim with sufficient records. According to Wine Australia, each offence carries a maximum penalty of two years’ imprisonment or a fine of 120 penalty units, or both.

The commercial consequences can bite harder than the fine. Wine Australia can cancel or suspend an export licence, require products to be withdrawn, and stop the export and sale of wine whose claims cannot be substantiated. In June 2024 it cancelled the export licence of a Murray Darling winery after an LIP investigation found it had failed to meet its record-keeping obligations under the Act.

Common gaps an inspector will find

• Intake dockets with a supplier name but no vineyard location or GI.
• Tanks and barrels without unique IDs, so a transfer cannot be followed.
• Toppings and small blends never written down because “it was only a few litres”.
• Water additions to high-sugar musts not recorded as a volume gain.
• Records made at the end of vintage from memory instead of within three days.
• Records thrown out before seven years — a problem for any museum or late-release wine.

Keeping the trail in one place

Wine Australia publishes free templates and grower and packager guides, and for a small operation a well-kept set of templates works. As volumes grow, the hard part is keeping intake, vessel movements, blends and bottling linked so a composition can be worked out without rebuilding it by hand. GrapeFlow records intake by block, every transfer, blend and addition by lot and vessel, and the lot history through to bottling, so the vintage, variety and GI composition behind a label is there when you need it. It does not lodge anything with Wine Australia and is not affiliated with it: keeping records that meet the LIP is still your responsibility.

This article summarises Wine Australia’s published guidance as at October 2026. It is not legal advice; for a specific label claim, Wine Australia offers a label opinion service.