The ruling comes into force this month but with a lot of conditions, reports Talking Drinks. The European Commission must be notified of the product and process used. The use of experimental practice must also be noted on both the accompanying documentation and wine-making records.
Producers will still be restricted from reducing the alcohol content of the wine by any more than 2% using these wine making practices.
Customers in UK have been saying for some time that they want more choice of lower alcohol wines. There has been a demand for lower alcohol wines after several years of powerful, high-alcohol wines. These rules should allow the industry to meet that demand.
The practice is common in California where there are special factories that can take in tanker-loads of high alcohol wines and ship out reduced-alcohol wines. 'Alcohol-free' wines are also being made available using this technique. Spain has been following this practice with Torres recently announcing production of zero-alcohol wine for the US market.
Wine lovers do not like to hear about alcohol reduction as it 'de-romanticises the wine. The producers normally do not like to publically admit to the process in California. The EU ruling will ensure that the process is declared to the consumer. |