But while rival wine companies struggle to maintain sales momentum in the face of the financial crisis and industry oversupply, Casella did increase its sales to $426.7 million from $383.85 million.

Documents lodged with the Australian Securities and Investments Commission show Casella posted a net profit of $40.64 million for the 2008-09 financial year, down 48.6 per cent from earnings of $79.16 million in the previous period.

Casella, which sells more than 8 million cases of wine a year and exports 85 per cent of its product, has built Yellow Tail into the biggest-selling imported wine brand in the US - from an unknown label in 2001.

Its continued success and profitability contrast starkly with the wider malaise in the wine sector, with companies such as Foster's selling some of their wineries, farmers leaving grapes to rot on the vine and some listed wine groups facing losses and potential ruin.

According to recent industry figures 1.73 million tonnes of grapes were crushed in 2008-09, a decrease of 100,000 tonnes or 5.4 per cent from the year before.

Recent figures from the Australian Bureau of Statistics show that exports of Australian-produced wine fell by 5.6 per cent in June to 66 million litres. The value of the exports for the month was $207.7 million, a decrease of 1.7 per cent from May.

For the 12 months ending last June Australia exported 752.5 million litres, with a total value of $2.5 billion. This represented an increase of 5.3 per cent in volume but a decrease of 7.5 per cent in value over the corresponding period to June 2008.

Casella said it was outperforming the Australian category by 13 per cent in bottled wine shipments leaving Australia as one in five exported wine bottles was from the company.