The Board of the permanent Committee of  Biological Agriculture of the European Commission  put forward a favourable opinion to  the new  regulation for the production of organic wine. These measures were very much expected and were subjected  to bitter discussions ; the new regulation should  be published  shortly  in the Bulletin  of the European Commission.

This should  allow the effective production of organic wine elaborated as from  the 2012 harvest. The producers will have to respect the specifications (with a certification number delivered by a certified Body) and thus affix on the label the European logo  of  biological agriculture as well as the indication of “organic wine”.

Until now the only authorised  indication   is “wine elaborated from biological agriculture” ; this indication will consequently be forbidden  as from the   31^st July 2012, at: such date the new regulation  should come into force.

Regulated  information

The discussions which have been lasting now for several years dealt with the whole of the rules of the elaboration  of organic wine from grape to wine  ; as for  the “raw material”, which is the grape,   the matter  had been settled  for long  through the specifications of biological agriculture ; on the contrary the conditions of elaboration and storage of wine were very difficult to settle;

The whole of the measures will be included in the next  regulation  which should be published shortly;  in substance we can indicate that the oenological additives which are authorised will be put down in writing  in a positive list  (what will not be indicated  in this list will be forbidden) ;  and concerning the physical and thermal process there should be on the contrary a negative list (what will be mentioned in such list will be forbidden) ; some techniques will be authorised  with reservation (for instance the thermal process).

The most symbolic change will concern the rates of sulphites which  will be reduced  compared   with  the base wine and the thresholds of which will depend on the rate of  residual sugar.

Sugar < 2 g/l  SO2 max en mg/l

Sugar > 2 g/l  SO2 max en mg /l

Economical data on the biological career

Organic wine is not part of biological products bought by the consumer.

The first rank  is occupied by fruit and vegetables.

Wine elaborated from  biological agriculture is presently increasing in France : 50000 ha and 3900 producers ; France ranks third behind Spain and Italy ; the most important customers are Germany and the Benelux countries.

The vine  conversions into organic wine are highly giving up : the gain  :amounts to 8% in one year and viticulture represents presently a little less than 10% of the biological market in France  (Turnover 3,4 thousand  million Euro).

The potentiality of development of these products remains very important in viticulture ; the change of denomination of “wine elaborated from biological agriculture” into “organic wine” was very much expected and will contribute to reinforce the  picture and the attractiveness of this career in viticulture.