In Australia it is increasing in popularity, increasing from zero at the start of the century to about 40 producers currently, mostly in the cooler parts of the south-eastern states. Lagrein was pioneered in Australia by Peter May of Melbourne University’s Burnley Campus who discovered a couple of vines in the "vine library" of the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation at Merbein in northeast Victoria, and in part influenced by research by Richard Smart and Peter Dry, planted the variety in his garden-sized vineyard at Kyneton in 1988.