Five things to know about the global wine industry

(Telegraph) - There are more than one million wine makers in the world, producing around 2.8bn cases of wine each year. Global demand has hit nearly 3bn and is rising. But the global wine industry is changing shape, with the old world gradually losing its crown as the world's vineyard, and new wine drinkers emerging from countries like China. 

These are five things you need to know to understand the changing face of the world's wine industry.

 The old world still dominates, but its star is slowly waning  Europe- led by France, Italy and Spain - still holds the crown as the world's biggest wine producer, making around 1.5bn cases in 2012. But production from this part of the world is falling sharply, with output down 9.5pc between 2011 and 2012. France - the world's biggest producer - suffered an even sharper fall of 18pc.

This chart shows more clearly the diverging fates of old and new world wine producers (note that the measures do not use the same scale):

 China is becoming one of the top new world winemakers 

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.