A short time ago we wrote a glowing report about the fantastic 2012 California grape harvest in both quantity and quality. Unfortunately, the same is not true for the rest of the world.
Whether it was a year of freak weather patterns, global warming or just plain rotten luck, almost every other wine grape producing country had a host of problems to cope with, while our West Coast grape growers came up smelling like a rose.
According to Bloomberg's recently released wine output forecast, the world's wine production is projected to fall 6.1 percent in 2012, with production down in France, Argentina, Hungary and New Zealand. Output could fall to 248.2 million hectoliters, or 6.56 billion gallons, from 264.2 million hectoliters in 2011.
What does that mean to you, the average, everyday wine consumer?
The worldwide demand for wine will not diminish, and something must come in to make up the slack. Enter California. It will be up to California, which was deluged with a glut of wine in recent years, to fill the gaps.
This will mean that a lot of wine will have to be produced for shipment overseas. It also means that demand may make the prices of the 2012 vintage skyrocket in all classes of wine.
We must keep in mind that these winemakers are businesspeople and not artists. An artist might slap 10 bucks worth of paint on a canvas and if he or she is lucky, it will sell for a good price. Winemakers go at winemaking with the heart of an artist but the rationale of an accountant. They know all of the financial facets involved in making a bottle of wine and adjust their retail prices accordingly, but must also keep them commensurate with the quality they offer so as not to price themselves right out of business.
The wines from the 2010 and 2011 California harvest are now hitting the marketplace, but it is the 2012 vintage that may be a problem.
Questions - huge questions - now arise. Will prices increase? Will quality go down? Will some wines become unavailable because of demand both here and overseas? Unfortunately, we do not have a crystal ball and the tarot cards told us nothing, so we can only go by experience.
It is our belief that there will probably be a $2 price rise in the current $7 to $18 category of American wines, with significant rises in the premium brands.
The recent dip in the economy forced a rise in wine prices as it did in almost every area of commerce, so that the price of a formally $9 bottle of wine went up to $12.
The real problem will be in foreign wine, which will reflect this year's lower production quality and internal consumption. We believe there will be fewer imports and some of these imports may be of questionable quality.
It will be up to wine journalists to be on constant alert and keep wine consumers well informed; but, as always, caveat emptor, let the buyer beware.
Nixa resident Bennet Bodenstein is a wine columnist and helps manage ArticlesOnWine.com with his wife, Sheila. He can be reached at frojhe@suddenlink.net.
