PARIS – Bad weather in Europe looks set to slash worldwide wine production by up to 8.2 percent compared with last year’s output, the prestigious International Organization of Vine and Wine said Tuesday.

During a press conference at its Paris headquarters, Jean-Marie Aurand, the OIV’s director general, said initial harvest estimates of 2017’s global wine production showed that the world’s three largest producers – Italy, France and Spain – had all crashed to historically low production levels.

“In the European Union (EU), extreme weather events ? from frost to drought ? significantly impacted 2017 wine production, which was historically low,” the OIV said in a statement. “The three

main producing countries saw a decrease compared with 2016 production,” the report added.

The OIV is an intergovernmental organization of a scientific and technical nature whose competence is recognized in matters regarding vines, wine and other vine-based products. It is made up of 46 member states.

The OIV said that while Italy confirmed its place as the leading world producer for the third year running in 2017, its output fell by 23 percent compared to 2016.

It added that France produced 19 percent less wine, year-on-year, while production in Spain, the world’s third most important producer in terms of volume, had fallen by 15 percent.

These 2017 global estimates are a far cry from the bumper crops of 2004 and 2013, the report said.

Germany also had recorded low production, the OIV said, adding that there had however been some measure of growth in other European wine producers such as Portugal, with 10 percent more production, Romania up 64 percent, Hungary with a 3 percent increase and Austria with a 23 percent boost.

In America, the United States, the world’s fourth-largest producer, dropped 1 percent but maintained a comparatively high output although the US Department of Agriculture supplied data from Aug. 2017, prior to the massive fires that burnt large swathes of wine producing country in California.

In South America, the OIV highlighted Argentina’s 25 percent increased production which can be explained by the very bad previous year.

Chile suffered a 6 percent drop, while Brazil’s production shot 183 percent after a disastrous 2016 campaign.