We don’t mean to put a damper on your Monday, but we’re a little nervous right now. We’re scared about the future of winos everywhere. Why? There’s a global wine shortage that could be in full effect soon.
There was a report released last week by Morgan Stanley Research that showed there was a global undersupply of about 300 million cases of wine in 2012 – that’s the largest deficit recorded in almost 50 years.
One big reason for the shortage is that less land is being used to grow grapes in some of the major wine countries like Spain, France and Italy. Those three countries alone make up 60 percent of the world’s wine, so everything they do makes a huge difference to the wine world. Since there is a decrease in wine consumption in those older European countries, there is less land being dedicated to vineyards. But while they’re drinking less, the U.S. and China are drinking more. Both countries are projected to consume over 400 million cases of wine each by 2016, meaning we need the Europeans to snap out of it and start planting those grapes again.
Another area of concern is the early frost that has swept across Chile and put their grape harvest in jeopardy. Wineries in Chile are claiming that they are operating as normal and shouldn’t face any risk of being unable to fulfill their commercial commitments to different markets, but we feel like that may be their way of trying to keep everyone calm. There is an initial prediction that there will be a 20 percent decrease in production for 2014’s harvest, but the true repercussions will be seen more clearly later this month when bunches can be counted in the vineyards.
Meanwhile, as wine production faces a decrease, you may remember our article from a few weeks ago about how the Millennial generation is consuming more wine than previous generations. With more demand coming from the younger crowd and less supply available, things are not going to be pretty if people can’t get their hands on the wine that they love.
Wine production peaked in 2004 and has been steadily declining ever since. What will it take to get things back on track again? Give us a little hope for the future and let us know what you think may be the key to increasing wine production again.