World wine trends

(CentreDaily) - What wine would you drink with a nice herring on toast in a Liverpool pub? Why, an English white wine, of course - maybe made from the Bacchus grape by Biddenden Vineyards in Kent.

What would you order in a restaurant in China's Szechuan Province to go with its signature beef dish Gan Bian Niu Rou Si, spiced with ginger and black peppercorns? Try a hearty red merlot by the Chinese wine firm Dynasty, grown in that country's Ningxia Helan Mountain region.

Wine is going global - and faster than many think. Here's the world wine outlook for 2014 and beyond.

-Most of the world's Northern Hemisphere grapes are grown between latitudes 30 and 50 - roughly from Spain and Israel in the south to central Germany in the north. But this global swath also includes such unexpected countries as Afghanistan, India, China, even North Korea.

-Grape-growing regions are shifting north. Warmer weather due to climate change will expand grape production in England, China, Russia and Scandinavia by mid-century, The New York Times reports. At the same time, some fear increasing heat may hurt established wine regions in Bordeaux, Tuscany and Spain.

-England and Wales have doubled their number of wineries to over 400 in the past decade, the Mail Online website says.

-China, today the world's fifth-largest wine producer, is on track to double its grape production in five years to become the world's largest producer, says Wine-Searcher website.

-Wine consumption is shifting east. Increasing affluence and sophistication are boosting wine in countries new to such luxury.

-When French Bordeaux producers hiked prices sharply during the 2010 economic downturn, U.S. sippers pulled back, and newly rich Chinese wine fans became the world's biggest importers of Bordeaux, says CNN Money. At the 2013 Hospices de Beaune auction in France, a Chinese businesswoman made news by paying $180,000 for a 456-liter barrel of fancy Burgundy.