Quartz, citing Morgan Stanley survey, reports that a world wine shortage may be looming. Such situation is contributed to the wine undersupply which totaled 300 million cases of wine last year.
The wine production has decreased dramatically in the largest wine producing countries - Spain, France, and Italy, where more than 60% of global wine is bottled. Moreover, recently less land was used to grow grapes.
Nevertheless, wine consumption increased 8% since 2000. The wine industry peaked in 2004 and has been steadily declining since then. Especially it is seen in Europe where the output declined 25%. Meanwhile, in the USA, Australia, South Africa, Argentina, and Chili the wine industry is expanding but these countries cover only 30% of all global needs.
However, the wine demand is booming in the USA and China. The Americans now guzzle wine twice as more than at the beginning of the century. Meanwhile, in China the growth totaled 150% for the last 5 years. In 2005, Chinese consumed 70 million cases of wine, whereas last year the number increased to 230 million cases. It is expected that this year the figure will reach 250 million, in 2016 – 400 million.
At that, China shows the most noticeable expansion of wine output. They note increased number of vineyards since the beginning of the century which now totals 7.5% of worldwide lands.
The survey also shows that more than one bountiful season is required for the trend to reverse. In 2013, they hope to increase production due to good harvest, but it will not be possible to mitigate the deficit in the long term without larger number of vineyards.
