2012 harvest results:

Early July, we got the first official forecast for the French harvest. They were around 46.7 million hectolitres.

A production decreased by 5% compared to the 2011 quantitative harvest, because of repeated frosts during the winter 2011-2012 and an early summer cool and wet.

In mid-July, these forecasts were slightly eroding with the detail by production area (46.5 Mhl). Once initiated, the downward revision of potential French production has continued to decline. In August, the forecasts clearly became uncertain (to 44.15 million hectolitres, -13% compared to 2011), plummeting to 40.6 Mhl in the beginning of September. Stéphane Le Foll, Minister of Agriculture, then calls "the 2012 harvest historically low, the lowest in the past 20 years." For Jérôme Despey (FNSEA), it is the climate that will have regulated the French market this year.

Since stabilized at 40.7 million hl (12% below the five year average), the French production is marked by a regional succession of weak regional harvest: -18% In the Bordeaux region, -40% in Roussillon, half a harvest in Beaujolais... With the notable exception of California (+14%), the wine production throughout the northern hemisphere has decreased in 2012. The harvest results in the southern hemisphere also shows a reduction in production, particularly in Argentina and New Zealand. According to the latest report from the International Organisation of Vine and Wine, 248.2 million hectolitres of wine were produced in 2012 (-6% compared to 2011).

If the international wine market is in equilibrium after a chronic excess period of supply, the question is whether this balance will be sustained or momentary. The first harvest in 2013 should undoubtedly give the first elements of answers ... -

Source:http://www.vitisphere.com