The holiday season is almost here, but a shortage of glass bottles may dampen the festive cheer with demand for wine outpacing supply this year. The wine industry has been reeling under the pressure of the global supply chain crisis, resulting from the COVID-19 pandemic.

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Importers and distributors are bearing the brunt of labour shortages, overseas manufacturing delays, higher transportation costs, surging consumer demand and inflation.

Bottle manufacturers

Most of the bottles for vintners in the US are manufactured in Asian countries as production costs are less.

According to Mauricio Perez of Panamanian glass supplier BPS Glass, around 60-70 percent of glass bottles used in the US came from China before tariffs were imposed by the Donald Trump administration in 2018. Following the sanctions, some manufacturers started importing glass from Europe or Latin America to meet the demand.

In Asia, factories closed as restrictions were imposed following the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic. Production had slowed in the ensuing months and choked supply across the world.

Changing suppliers

To battle the supply chain woes, some distillers are changing glass suppliers.

"The factory that we were working with in the UK had a coronavirus outbreak and had to completely shut down, so that put our production way behind schedule by at least a few months," Jessica Peterson, director of operations at Castle & Key Distillery, Kentucky, told CNBC.

Castle & Key also had to shift to air freight temporarily as sea freight costs tripled during the pandemic and shipments got delayed.

The distillery is now taking supplies from Guadalajara in Mexico, from where the orders are delivered by rail.

"Some of the large distillers, even though they have multi-year contracts for millions of bottles, they're finding in some instances that they have to pick and choose as to which bottle sizes they're going to get," David Ozgo, chief economist for the Distilled Spirits Council, told CNBC.

This could lead to a supply crunch of smaller-volume bottles as distillers emphasise more popular sizes -- the 750 ml and the 1.75 litre.

Vineyard automation

Meanwhile, faced with a shortage of manpower, winegrowers across Western Europe are turning away from the tradition of picking grapes and crushing them for making wines and moving to automation, a Wall Street Journal report recently said.

The wine industry in Western Europe, South America and the US is labour-intensive and employs migrant workers in huge numbers. Following the pandemic, the movement of migrant and temporary workers had been restricted for months, leading to a major shortage of manpower.

The acute labour shortage has pushed growers towards automation. The industry had earlier shied away from automation because of concerns about the quality of the grapes picked by machines.

Climate change

Climate change is also impacting grapes, vulnerable to increased average temperatures, rising sea levels, disruption in weather patterns, erratic rainfall patterns and floods.

Recently, French wildfires consumed 73 wineries and five cooperatives and several acres of land.

Rising soil acidity is one of the other concerns troubling wine growers.

Faced with a rise in temperature, traditional wine-growing areas are becoming too warm for wine production, while those deemed too cold earlier are now becoming more suitable for wine production.

In countries like Argentina and Chile, growers have shifted to coastal regions and mountains. Growers in southern France may consider moving closer to the Alps or Pyrenees.

(Edited by : Shoma Bhattacharjee)