Global Wine Shortage Worsens

By Jobs & Hire Staff Reporter | Oct 30, 2013 09:46 AM EDT

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Even with the one million wine producers worldwide, there is still an estimated undersupply of nearly three hundred million cases. Supply and demand are coming to a collision as production in Europe, where half of the worlds wine supply comes from, dropped by ten percent last year , while the world's consumption went up one percent.

Some of these productions woes were caused by bad weather in France and Argentina. This is problematic as the French consume the most wine, followed by America and China, who has seen a dramatic upswing in wine consumption, it has double twice in the past five years,  as their economy has boomed , making the luxury liquid more popular .However, the increase in China's consumption has been balanced out by the fact they have begun to produce more wine of their own, though this is rarely exported, though China is leading the world in growth, so this will have to change.   

Americas gluttony in this area ,does not do much to change the rest of the worlds perspective of the culture, in fact it plays up the stereotype of Americans. Americans consume 12%  of the world's wine. but produce less than eight percent , while consumption rose another two percent this year. So the vineyards of California are not enough.

The illusion of the upswing in this industry in the U.S., is due to the fact in the past fifteen years there has been an increase but only in the small boutique markets and no larger major production. In fact production in America has already peaked, along with countries like    Argentina, Chile, New Zealand and South Africa. Just the  U.S. and China  alone are projected  to consume more than 400 million cases each by 2016. It has not yet been speculated if this number , will in turn cause a rise in alcoholism and force the social pressures to balance out these rising trends.


Despite the fact , the 2013 harvest was the largest in seven years, it might be too little too late as analysts are claiming due to supply and demand,  we might be facing  the largest shortage of wine in over fifty years. Europe this year produced sixty percent of the wine despite the countries that have in the past been the largest producers Spain, France and Italy , seeing a decrease in the land dedicated in vineyards.So the days of wine and roses might have come and gone. 

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