Total production of wine around the world has been declining since a peak in 2004 in the face of steadily increasing demand.
Economists believe that a wine shortage will result because vineyards will not be able to meet consumer demand.
Global production was lower in 2012 than it had been in 2002, when production was more than 600 million cases. After an unexpected high output in 2004, further drops year after year followed.
By 2006, producers began to rely on their excess inventories to keep customers happy.
The shortfall in 2012 was the greatest in more than 40 years. The demand for wine was greater than its production by about 300 million cases even though 2.8 billion were produced.
Despite the increased interest in wine and the fact that there are more than one million wine makers in the world, the total global area devoted to vineyards has fallen.
In the last 12 months, poor weather plagued production in Europe, the world's biggest wine-producing region led by France, Italy and Spain. Europe was responsible for making 1.2 billion cases last year.
China is now second only to the US among new world wine producers, following an astronomical rise from its near-zero levels in the mid-1990s. It produced around 150m cases of wine last year.
Wine consumption, on the other hand, is rising, particularly in the US and China. Traditionally, people in France have made the greatest number of purchases of any country in the world, but it looks like the US will soon overtake France.
Should production continue to fall below demand, prices look certain to go up.
