The EU's wine reform proposals – including allowing blends from grapes grown in different countries - have been branded 'dangerous' by AOC producers.
The European Commission today set out its proposals for a major overhaul of the European wine industry, which include offering producers over €7,000 per hectare to uproot vines, banning chaptalisation (adding sugar to wine), and major changes in labelling rules.
The package will cost €1.3bn per year, and will come into effect in 2008-09 if approved by EU member states.
Mariann Fischer Boel, European Commissioner for Agriculture said, 'The first step is restore the link between supply and demand'. She added that about 200,000 hectares of vines should be uprooted, with planting restrictions continuing until 2013.
The proposals also aim to make producing varietal wines easier by authorising blended wines to be made from the same grape grown in different EU countries.
EU spokesman Michael Mann told decanter.com 'this would have to be clearly indicated on the label' but added it would make it 'easier to produce wines which people want to buy'.
More producers would also be able to list the grape variety and vintage on wine labels even if they do not currently have designation of origin (DO) status, such as France's AOC.
However, producers of DO wines said the proposals are 'dangerous' as the location where the grapes were grown could become the sole factor in awarding DO status.
'The competitiveness of the EU wine sector cannot be increased at the expense of quality,' said a group of DO producers from Italy, Spain, France and Portugal.
Riccardo Ricci Curbastro, President of the Italian DOC producers' federation said the proposals are 'not acceptable... we refuse that the wine making process could be done hundreds or thousands of kilometres away from the area where the grapes come from'.
They were also unconvinced by the EU's €120m budget to promote European wines worldwide, saying it was 'disappointing'.
Have your say... To post your comment on this story, email us at news@decanter.com, making sure the relevant headline is in the subject field
It was just over 30 years ago that in a drive for purity of product the blending of "bone setter" wines from North Africa into the softer and weaker wins from Northern France, notoriously Burgundy, was banned. Merchants had to work harder to source a rich 'Nuits St Georges' and consumers learned to like and then admire the true softer palate of good Burgundy. The Northern Rhone wines started to be sought after as masculine wines and as a result the decline in the wine industry in places like Cornas and St Joseph was halted and now is flourishing.
Thank fully we in UK have a fine wine heritage and the education by wine writers and popular TV shows have taught the public to expect better and purer wines. Wine sales are increasing and increasingly people are finding more pleasure in a bottle of character which may be a little more in price than the cheapest available varietal. Now we have Mariann Fischer Boel, European Commissioner for Agriculture an EU Commissioner who wants to put the clock back and mix wines of different origins and countries again. Without doubt she knows no history otherwise she would not plan to set in motion all the good done in the past 30 years to improve wine and earn more money for those winegrowers that seek quality above quantity. We can only protest at this proposal made by a bureaucrat for bureaucrats but certainly not for those who lve wine and are deeply grateful for the progress made in the past thirty years Laurence Measey
Register on decanter.com absolutely free for news alerts delivered direct to your email inbox, and our fortnightly newsletter with advance notice of what’s coming up in Decanter magazine, offers, competitions and more.
PLUS registration is a one-stop shop for the Decanter magazine Archive and Decanter Fine Wine Tracker.
It was just over 30 years ago that in a drive for purity of product the blending of "bone setter" wines from North Africa into the softer and weaker wins from Northern France, notoriously Burgundy, was banned. Merchants had to work harder to source a rich 'Nuits St Georges' and consumers learned to like and then admire the true softer palate of good Burgundy. The Northern Rhone wines started to be sought after as masculine wines and as a result the decline in the wine industry in places like Cornas and St Joseph was halted and now is flourishing.
