Global wine production slumped to its lowest level in more than 50 years in 2017 after vines in the world’s top three producers — France, Spain and Italy — were ravaged by both freakishly hot and cold weather. Hard-hit regions include those producing Rioja and prosecco, which make large quantities of the affordable wines sold in supermarkets.
“We’ll start to see those [2017] wines coming to the market now and I think for higher volume, lower price wine you will see cost increases,” says Dan Jago, chief executive of high end wine merchant Berry Bros & Rudd.
“Prices for things like pinot grigio or generic Spanish reds will rise by between 10 percent and 30 percent and it’s [a question of] how much of that retailers will pass on,” says Jago, who previously headed up the Tesco wine business. “Prosecco was very hard hit by frost, so there will be less of it and the price will go up.”
The International Organisation of Vine and Wine estimates global wine production dropped 8 percent to 247m hectolitres in 2017 — the worst global harvest since 1961. A hectolitre is the equivalent to 133 standard wine bottles, so the fall in output equates to about 2.9bn fewer bottles.
.jpg?ar=16%3A9&auto=format%2Ccompress&dpr=2&fit=crop&h=135&q=70&w=240)
