Hunter Valley company Tyrrell's Wines was selling wine to China worth $750,000 to $1 million a year before the Chinese dictatorship slapped an export ban on Australia.
"It'd be nice to get that back," the company's managing director Bruce Tyrrell said on Sunday.
China has dropped its tariffs against Australian barley, raising hopes that trade sanctions on wine will also ease.
"Hopefully we're next cab off the rank. That'd be very good. It'd be good for the Chinese too," Mr Tyrrell said.
Mr Tyrrell said Chinese wine consumption had "dropped by more than half" since the ban.
"It's probably because they haven't got the wine they like to drink. There's a lot of thirsty Chinese drinkers."
The Chinese communist dictatorship imposed five-year tariffs of up to 218 per cent on Australian wines in 2021.
The tariffs followed a diplomatic dispute after the Morrison government called for an inquiry into the origins of COVID-19. The Albanese government has since worked to ease tensions.
"I think COVID got used as an excuse," Mr Tyrrell said.
"A lot of it was because we were doing so well in the market, it was starting to knock the local Chinese wine market around. The producers were complaining."
Mr Tyrrell said Australian wine producers had "created a really good new market in Russia".
"It got shut too," he said, due to the war with Ukraine.
"Take Russia and China out, it's a significant part of the world market."
He said new markets were found in Spain, Greece, Italy and France last financial year.
"We're due for an order any day from Kazakhstan, which is a very wealthy country due to oil," he said.
"We're starting to crank up Korea again now:"
Several other major markets in Asia were being explored, but "it's getting them going and getting sales up".
"None of them give us the volume returns of China," Mr Tyrrell said.
The Australian wine sector secured a free trade agreement with China in 2015, which led to rising wine sales.
Hunter Valley wineries exported 135,000 litres of wine to China in the 12 months to April 2020. China had been the Hunter's major export market, worth $1.8 million a year. This had represented 46 per cent of the region's wine exports.
In a joint statement, Trade Minister Don Farrell and Foreign Minister Penny Wong said on Friday they expected China's "duties on Australian wine" to be removed.
"In the meantime, we are continuing to pursue our wine dispute at the WTO [World Trade Organisation] and remain confident in a positive outcome," they said.
European winemakers had hoped to take Australia's market share during the trade sanctions.
"The Europeans didn't get the growth they thought they would," Mr Tyrrell said.
"Everyone underestimated the value of our tourism industry in getting the Chinese market to back Australia.
"They come here, they get looked after. They're happy people and we like to see them. They go home, having had a good time."
Mr Tyrrell said winemakers were looking for more markets this year, "Mexico being one".
"Brazil's currency has turned around a bit now. We used to sell a fair bit of wine in Brazil five to six years ago, but their currency disappeared down a hole and it became too expensive."
