Brussels, 25/07/2012 (Agence Europe) - The European Union will be able to harvest its first organic wines this year, with the creation of a label and new harmonised rules designed to create more transparency and keep pace with organic wines from the New World, the Commission states.
Rules already exist within the EU for organic wines. “But they do not cover wine-making practices, in other words the entire process, from the grape to the wine”, the Commission states in a press release. The new label will apply from the 2012 vintage, which wine-makers will start to harvest this summer.
To use the organic label, wines must now observe certain wine-making practices. Sorbic acid and desulphurisation will not be permitted, and the level of sulphites will have to be very low. The EU wishes to ensure that consumers can be confident that any organic wine will have been produced on the basis of stricter production rules, the Commission explains.
There is also the objective of reinforcing the position of European organic wines internationally, in view of the fact that many other wine-producing countries (United States, Chile, Australia, South Africa, etc) have already set in place standards applicable to organic wines.
Amongst other things, organic European wines will have a maximum sulphite level of 100mg per litre for red wine (150 mg/l for non-organic wine) and 150 mg/l for white and rosé wine (compared to 200 mg/l), with a differential of 30 mg/l if the residual sugar level is above 2g per litre, according to the European Commission. As might be expected, these wines will have to be made from grapes grown under organic conditions, with extremely strict rules on the use of pesticides, amongst other things. The production of organic wine within the EU has been estimated at around 75,000 hectares of vines, over a total area of 3.5 million hectares. The largest organic reduction areas are in Italy (30,341 ha), followed by France (21,403 ha) and Spain (17,665 ha). (LC/transl.fl)