About 300 Australian wines from about 50 wineries have been given a 'green light' in a guide aimed at helping drinkers buy wines free of genetically-modified material.
Greenpeace Australia Pacific yesterday launched the first Alcoholic Drinks edition of its True Food Guide.
The Guide rates food and beverage companies by their policies and actions to exclude GM material from their products.
The Guide, which also includes beers and spirits, gives a 'green' rating to GM-free products and a 'red' rating to those which may contain GM-derived ingredients.
Although no Australian wines are on the 'red' list, a Greenpeace spokesperson said that not all necessarily were GM-free.
The release of the list follows the production for several years of a list of green-rated and red-rated food products sold in supermarkets.
Greenpeace compiles its lists by asking producers whether or not they use GM-free ingredients. It gives a 'red' listing to those which say they do use them, or to those which repeatedly refuse to answer.
Greenpeace claims most Australian winemakers, distillers and brewers are responding to consumer concerns by removing GM-derived ingredients from their products.
The Winemakers Federation of Australia has for the past six years maintained a policy that no genetically modified organism be used in Australian wine production.
'Nature does it so beautifully so why would you want to change anything?' said Cullen Wines' managing director, Vanya Cullen, who took part in the launch.
De Bortoli winemaker Rob Glastonbury said, 'Aside from the unknowns in the use of GM products, the concept that the food chain can be tied up in patents or intellectual property rights is repugnant.'
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It is a little worrying that Greenpeace Australia Pacific can even find the time these days to publish something as brain achingly useless as a 'non GM food guide' largely based on the voluntary answers to a questionnaire. Inevitably, the responses will come from the sales and marketing 'responsible' who will surely say 'No GM here mate' without even bothering (or knowing where) to check. Oh, and what self-promoting winemaker is going to admit to using GM processing aids until they are legally obliged to declare them on labels? Please Greenpeace, go back to doing what you were really good - like scuttling the French Navy and protecting the planet from sinister global threats - not publishing cheap 'colour supplement' fodder.
Chris Grimes, Bloxham, Oxon, UK
This is all very well, but how many Australian wineries did Greenpeace
canvas before printing a list of wines from 50 producers. I have been a
winemaker for 14 years in Australia and I would say that pretty much
every wine from Australia is GM free. It seems curious to single out a
handful for praise without investigating the whole industry.
Peter Logan, Australia
It is of course not possible to know if these Australians have been
quoted out of context, but I wonder if unmodified "nature" has very
much to do with winemaking in Australia? As far as I understand, that
industry involves large-scale man-made plantations of a plant species
not native to that continent. Rather, one vine species from Europe
(carefully selected, propagated and possibly crossed by man for many,
many centuries) is grafted on top of a man-made 19th/20th century
hybrid of American and European vines and grown in huge monocultures.
As they are naturally climbers on other vegetation, no untended vine in
nature ever grew as an evenly spaced monoculture on a steel trellising
system, or any other vine training system. It is a wonderful plant that
often makes for strikingly beautiful plantation (not to mention the
beauty of the wine!) - but in its contemporary form very much a product
of man's intervention into nature. You'll have to go back several
thousands of years to find signs of wine being made from grapes
collected from wild-growing vines. And when it comes to IPR, it would
surprise me very much if De Bortoli are able to handle their vineyards
or winemaking without using products that draw on hundreds or thousands
of patents.
Let's be honest - it's all about technology new and old,
but some producers apparently believe it's good for their marketing not
to use certain new technologies and making a lot of fuss and noise
about their non-use of it.
Tomas Eriksson, Brussels
Oh Wow! Vitus Vinifera has been genetically modified for thousands of years. There are over 800 clones of Sangiovese! Had there not been, there would be a very different wine industry today. Perhaps only existing in Chile and a small part of Australia, where the phylloxera never struck. Your southern hemisphere wine industry and others only exists because of genetic modification – V. Vinifera scion on V. Labrusca rootstock. You are getting a bit too precious over there!! Rather be concerned with stem cell research, where we can genetically modify human beings, and each person can carry a Greenpeace sticker on their foreheads.
Kingsley Martin
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