How China Became the Wine World’s Most Unlikely Superpower

(Time) - Start panicking. The global shortfall in wine is imminent. Or so it goes if you’ve been reading Morgan Stanley’s October report into the global wine industry, which suggests that the world is currently facing the deepest wine shortfall in nearly half a century as demand outstrips supply.

Experts over at the International Organization of Vine and Wine tell us however that there’s no need to start hoarding: world wine production this year has been exceptional, reaching seven-year highs, and consumption is beginning to stabilize. The real curiosity to take away from Morgan Stanley’s report is China’s ongoing and insatiable thirst for wine—the shortfall in supply is partly down to the fact that the superpower’s consumption of wine has doubled twice in the last five years, outstripping even U.S. demand. In fact China’s love of wine is growing at such a rate that it is expected to become the world’s largest consumer of wine by 2016.

Mike Veseth, editor of the blog Wine Economist and author of Wine Wars, tells TIME he’s already received emails from “people worried they need to stock up on wine, because the Chinese are going to drink it all. I don’t think that’s going to happen.” The country’s love of wine is not new, but what is is its emergence as a wine superpower, says Veseth. China’s increasingly wealthy classes and its growing demand for western luxury items have the power to significantly influence an industry, impacting supply and in turn prices for the rest of us. Underpinning this is an element of what Veseth calls “China Syndrome” in his blog. It’s “both the dream that China will buy all the goods we try to sell her and the fear that she will return the favor and take over our markets.”