EU: Ban on Sugar in Wine and Other Issues Are Still Debated
Staff Writer - December 12, 2007
 The European Union's top agriculture official said Tuesday, December 11, 2008, that a planned blanket ban on adding sugar to wine, a key part of the planned reforms to the EU wine sector, may be amended after strong opposition by many EU members.
EU Farm Commissioner Mariann Fischer Boel said she was well aware of the concerns voiced by countries with a cooler climate, such as Germany, Austria, Luxembourg and the Czech Republic, where vintners use sugar to boost alcohol content in mass-market wines.
"There has been a huge row about this, and I haven't blocked my ears to it ... but the status quo does have a genuine problem," Fischer Boel told the European Parliament.
Fischer Boel also said wine enrichment with pure must grape juice, practiced in southern countries, in much the same way as northern nations use sugar, must not continue at the current levels.
"It's an old fashioned, costly, trade-distorting measure. I am not inclined to accept the status quo. Any compromise would mean new conditions," she said.
The reforms are aimed at reversing falling wine sales among European consumers, by producing higher quality wines, while reducing overproduction, which costs hundreds of millions of euros each year to get rid of. The European Commission says the bloated EU wine industry must cut overproduction or risk further decline in the face of increased imports of New World wines.
The proposed reform suggests pulling up unprofitable vineyards, ending subsidies for massive and costly distillation of unsold wines, and improve labeling in order to make them more consumer-friendly.
The EU states aim for an agreement by the end of the year, however the most contended issues are yet to be settled. The issues which are still debated include the ban on the use of sugar, how to support producers of lower-quality wines who decide to stop production, and when to liberalize planting rights on areas previously not used as vineyards, for vintners who produce profitable wines.
| 
