In the early 1980s, Hungary was a significant wine exporter, each year shipping out more than 3 million hl/79 million gal, or 60% of production, notably very ordinary quality wine in bulk to the soviet union and East Germany. These markets shrank abruptly at the end of the 1980s (see gorbachev), leading to sudden over-supply and extreme uncertainty among vine-growers and winemakers.