Left: Gabriel Yravedra, former president of the OIV, Middle: Ignacio Sánchez Recarte, general secretary at CEEV, Right: Xavier Farré, vice-chairman of the Cava DO regulatory board
European wine producers are waging a new battle over chaptalisation, a method whereby sucrose is added to must to raise the potential alcohol level of wine prior to fermentation.
The renewed sugar feud, between southern producers on the one hand and northern and eastern European wine producers on the other, has been rekindled by two factors.
The first was a proposal to self-regulate the listing of ingredients on wine labels, which was presented in March 2018 to the European Commission by wine lobby groups the European Committee of Wine Companies (CEEV), and Copa-Cogeca, the committee which represents farmers and agriculture co-operatives.
This sparked the ire of southern European producers who are demanding transparency in wine production. Consumers, they say, increasingly want to know what they are drinking. Rising demand for organic and natural wines appears to show this.
The self-regulatory proposal excluded chaptalisation and other production methods in the listing of wine ingredients. This prompted leading Italian co-operatives and producer and farming associations – the Confederazione Italiana Agricoltori (CIA), Confcommercio, Coldiretti, Confagricoltura and Alleanza Delle Co-operative Italiane – to reject it.
These organisations have also voiced concerns over the practicalities of listing ingredients on wine labels.
Secondly, a resurgence of enrichment practices in southern Europe in 2018 has rekindled grievances over the EU’s skewed policy on enrichment rules.
During reform of the EU’s common market wine rules in 2008, an EC proposal to ban chaptalisation was rejected by northern EU member states. As a result, chaptalisation remains legal and regulated in parts of France and in England, Germany (other than Prädikatswein) Austria, Poland and Hungary.
This policy allows northern and eastern European wine producers to make a choice: they can either chaptalise wines or enrich them through the use of concentrated or rectified grape must. Southern European wine producers are however prohibited from using sugar to raise potential alcohol levels.
Producers in Italy and Spain say this policy has led to unfair competition and distortion in the EU single market. And many of them point out that using sugar contradicts the official definition of wine. Wine, as defined by the EU, is a product exclusively obtained by total or partial alcoholic fermentation of fresh grapes or grape must.
The enrichment of wine is usually associated with cool climates. However, its increasing use in hot southern climates has raised concerns about the ability of certain grape varieties to cope with the impact of drought and erratic weather linked to climate change. Over the past two years, there have been a number of reported cases and official enquiries into illegal chaptalisation in the wine regions of Bordeaux, Veneto and Castilla La Mancha.
Gabriel Yravedra, a chaptalisation expert in Spain and former president of the International Organisation of Vine and Wine (OIV), says that it is “essential to point out that in Europe, low potential alcohol level in vines does not only occur due to unfavourable climatic conditions”. He says that it is also due to the desire to make more wine per hectare, “which pushes vines above their natural capacity of photosynthesis”.
He says wine producers in Northern Europe use sugar rather than concentrated must because it is much cheaper than alternative methods. “In Europe there are other legal enrichment practices, which are [unlike chaptalisation] compatible with the official definition of wine. These include RCGM or RM or reverse osmosis, but these are all much more expensive than chaptalisation.”
Yravedra adds that sugar is much easier to conserve than concentrated must: “Forty kilo bags of sugar need only to be kept in dry conditions, whereas concentrated must requires storage in high-quality stainless steel containers to protect the homogeneity of the product.”
Beet and or cane sugar used in chaptalisation turns into alcohol, but it also increases volume in wine and dilutes it by unbalancing flavours, especially if alcohol levels are raised beyond 1%.
Author of “The Fraud of Chaptalisation in Wines of the European Union”, Yravedra claims EU producers continue to use chaptalisation to raise alcohol levels beyond the established limits set out in the EU’s strict wine rules of 2008. “Chaptalised wine can be detected chemically by using the deuterium nuclear magnetic resonance analytic method, or by using isotopic methods, so the fraud of sugar use is perfectly detectable, but is not done so,” he says.
In June 2018, Riccardo Cotarella, chairman of Italy’s national association of oenology, called for the prohibition of sugar and a harmonised EU policy on enrichment practices. “In Italy, wine is made from grapes, not sugar and water,” he said in an article published in his association’s magazine.
And in questions raised via a Member of the European Parliament, Yravedra also called for the prohibition of chaptalisation. Alternatively, he said, chaptalised wines should be categorised separately from wine. He said this would put an end to consumers being misled by contradictory EU legislation over the definition of wine.
The EC’s Health and Food Safety Commissioner, Vytenis Andriukaitis, has said that the self-regulatory proposal on labelling was “not satisfactory” as it had failed to meet the needs and expectations of consumers. “We support the right of consumers to be fully informed about what they drink,” an EC spokesman told Meininger’s when asked if chaptalisation and other enrichment practices would eventually be included in the labelling of wine ingredients. He also said Commissioner Andriukaitis was engaged in bilateral talks with the different sectors concerned to find solutions that would better meet consumers’ expectations.
Marco Bertagni, executive director of the lobbying group MUST (representing European grape and juice must producers), is meanwhile stepping up a campaign against chaptalisation. “Russia forbids wines that have sucrose as an ingredient. We are now exploring if the same rules are in place in China and other markets,” he says. “But even some producers in Italy or Spain are quite cold about the possibility of labelling sucrose. Are they afraid that the Pandora box is going to be opened?”
The CEEV’s general secretary, Ignacio Sánchez Recarte, told Meininger’s that the collapse of the self-regulatory proposal would lead to mandatory rules on wine through the reform of the EU’s Common Agricultural Policy post-2020. He however continues to argue that ingredient labelling should centre on energy intake and nutritional information rather than wine processing aids such as enrichment. The CEEV says “natural substances” added to must or wine to adjust the final balance, including sugar, should not be included in the list of ingredients. “The challenge is finding ways to communicate the ingredients of wine,” Recarte said. “Wine is an interpretation of each vintage. It is not made according to a set recipe; its final composition cannot be known until shortly before the wine is bottled.”
In April, Recarte said the CEEV would continue to defend the interests of its members across Europe by supporting the EU’s existing rules on enrichment despite growing calls from southern producers to put an end to asymmetrical rules. “There is unfair competition between areas of Europe where chaptalisation is permitted and in southern Europe, where EU subsidies for the use of RCGM or concentrated must expired in 2012,” says Xavier Farré, vice-chairman of the Cava DO regulatory board and chairman of wine co-operative Cevipe in Catalonia. “We need transparency in sparkling wine and Champagne production, where chaptalisation using sucrose has been used; wine enrichment practices should be listed on labels.”
Farré said Catalan authorities authorised enrichment for Parellada and Macabeo grapes used in cava production last September. He said grapes had matured too rapidly during the long hot summer of 2018, causing stress in vines. Rain at the end of August and in September increased the weight of grapes but alcohol levels were insufficient in some grapes. Similar conditions in Valencia led the regional government to authorise enrichment for the 2018 harvest in late September and Portuguese authorities also authorised enrichment using RCGM last year, as did several Italian wine regions.
Castilla La Mancha also considered enrichment: “Erratic weather recorded in 2018 in Castilla La Mancha could be a result of climate change,” said Juan Fuente, spokesman for the wine sector of Co-operativas Agrarias, the association of co-operatives that represents 80% of wine production in the region. “We had unexpected rainfall and cold weather last spring which affected the development of vines and led to low alcohol levels.” These lower than normal sugar levels prompted the Co-operativas Agrarias, for the first time ever, to seek regional government approval for enrichment. Fuente, however, pointed out that enrichment using concentrated must was not only related to ripeness; he said it could help improve wines.
In the end, regional authorities decided not to permit enrichment in Castilla La Mancha or the region of Extremadura, in South West Spain, where co-operatives left the grapes on vines for a longer time to reach adequate maturity. Growers from Unión Extremadura rejected the claim that the weather had a significant impact on lower alcohol levels in vines. They had urged Spanish authorities not to approve enrichment practices, saying these would only benefit large industrial producers which over-cropped vines and used macro-irrigation methods.
Barnaby Eales
