While accounting for less than 1% of global wine production, New Zealand was now the world's 10th largest exporter by value and 11th by volume, New Zealand Winegrowers chairman Stuart Smith said in the industry body's annual report.
Bottled wine continued to make up the core of exports, packaged shipments accounting for nearly $1 billion in export earnings.
The volume of bottled wine exported this year was greater than the total of all wine sales at home or abroad yearly as recently as 2006.
Bulk wine exports had grown at an even faster rate in line with global trends. Unpackaged wine accounted for 35% of all New Zealand wine shipped abroad, up from 31% last year.
But unpackaged shipments had slowed noticeably in recent months and were expected to reduce significantly over the coming year, Mr Smith said.
Australia remained New Zealand's premier market, exports totalling $380 million.
Exports to Canada had lifted 20% in the past year and China was up 50%.
New Zealand's overall price per litre had continued to decline gradually, the average value of all exports $6.58 per litre amounting to a 7% fall.
Packaged wine experienced a smaller decline, averaging $8.45 per litre, down 3% on 2011.
Increased bulk wine exports played a major role in the fall of packaged wine, but the strong New Zealand dollar was also an influence, he said.
It was expected the small 2012 vintage would significantly reduce the volume of bulk wine exports in the year ahead.
Despite a late and cool season, it was expected overall quality would be excellent as most regions benefited from benign autumn conditions, but supply would be tight.
The harvest of 269,000 tonnes was down 18% on the previous year, while wine production of 194 million litres would be "well below" last year's sales totals of more than 240 million litres.
Average grape prices "recovered somewhat" but, while the increase would be welcomed by growers, it was unlikely to do much to ease the economic pain they were experiencing as lower yields more than offset the current year's price rebound.
Increased tension between supply and demand would probably result in further grape price rises in the coming vintage.
More normal yields would hopefully be sufficient to return hard-hit growers to financial sustainability, Mr Smith said.
Investment in new vineyard plantings had been on hold for the past four years and the availability of planting material for any major developments was limited.
As a result, supply capacity would be constrained in the medium term, and any increase in production (above 2011 levels) would depend heavily on weather conditions and the discipline of the industry, he said.
