You're reading: Do EU organic rules for wine leave glass half empty?

VERONA, Italy, April 24 - After lengthy debate, the European Commission agreed in February on a set of conditions which will allow a wine made from organic grapes to be called "organic wine". Such a label is expected to lure health-conscious consumers around the world.

After lengthy debate, theEuropean Commissionagreed in February on a set of conditions which will allow a wine made from organic grapes to be called "organic wine". Such a label is expected to lure health-conscious consumers around the world.

Reaction fromItaly,Europe’s second-biggest grower of organic grapes afterSpain, was mixed: with cheers from the agriculture ministry and scepticism from farmers who put a lot of effort and funds into making chemicals-free wine.

"The rules are too broad. With my own rules, I am much more restrictive thanBrussels," Gregorio Dell’Adami de Tarczal, owner of an organic farm inTuscanyand winemaker, told Reuters at a wine fair at the end of March.

New rules for the much-contested use of sulphites in wine are the most thorny issue.

De Tarczal, who makes 30,000 bottles of wine and 2,000 bottles of grappa a year from organic grapes he grows without chemical pesticides or fertilizers, said he already adds only 20-25 mg of sulphites per litre, way below the new EU rules.

Health-conscious consumers tend to shy away from products containing sulphites which are added as preservatives to wine, foods and cosmetics but can be an irritant which causes rashes and wheezing in people who are sensitive to them.

Under the new EU regulation which kicks in with this year’s wine harvest, maximum sulphite content for organic wine will be cut by 50 mg per litre from the levels allowed for conventional dry wines and by 30 mg per litre for sweet wines.

That means newly labelled dry red organic wine will be allowed a sulphite content of up to 100 mg per litre, while up to 150 mg per litre of sulphites could be added to organic white and rose dry wines.

"We are not satisfied,"Domenico Bosco, wine expert atItaly’s biggest farmers’ associationColdiretti, said.

"We wanted regulations to include a reduction of sulphite content by at least a half. To start with a 50 percent cut, but aiming at a complete elimination of the use of sulphites in the organic wine within three to five years," Bosco said.

OLD AND NEW WAYS TO KEEP WINE FRESH

In the meantime, new techniques will be developed and sharpened to allow producers to preserve wine without using sulphites, for example, injection of inert gases to protect wine from bacteria, he said.

Some winemakers rely on the old methods to prevent wine from going sour.

Claudia Carretti, who with her husband makes what they call natural wines, said they do without added sulphites and use instead an ancient long maceration process with grape skins left fermenting together with other grape materials for a long time.

"We have wine which is 7 years old and it’s a proof that the ancient technique works," said Carretti whose family makes about 20,000 bottles of natural wine at their Podere Pradarolo estate near Parma incentral Italy.

For Bosco, the new rules also mean a missed marketing opportunity for organic wine makers who had counted on more stringent criteria to give them a competitive advantage over conventional wines.

Makers of good conventional wine inItaly,Spainandsouthern Francewhere natural conditions help farmers grow healthy grapes, keep sulphite contents close to new limits set for organic wine, he said.

Italyneeds to boost production of organic wine if it wants to compete with other major winemakers in the small but rapidly growing organic wine market, especially innorthern Europewhere consumers are very attentive to healthy food and drinks, winemakers and experts said.

"Having an organic product is a major plus for expanding in Nordic markets,"Tiziana Sarnari, wine analyst at Italian agricultural think tank ISMEA said.

About 200 million litres of wine are made from organic grapes a year inItaly, or just about 5 percent of total annual wine output in the world’s second-biggest wine producer.

Organic vineyards occupied just 30,341 hectares inItalyin 2010, with another 21,931 hectares being converted into organic farming, against 670,107 hectares under all vineyards in the country, according to Italian organic farming database SINAB.