WINES IMPORTED FROM ARGENTINA (7291/07)
Letter from the Chairman to Lord Rooker,
Minister of State for Sustainable Farming and Food, Department
for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs
Your Explanatory Memorandum dated 29 March 2007
was considered by Sub-Committee D at its meeting on 25 April.
This Proposal provides a good illustration of
what we have learned about EU oenological practices in the course
of our inquiry into the EU wine sector. The Community is banning
wine-making practices which are approved by the OIV but then accepting
them either under successive derogations or as part of bilateral
wine agreements with third countries. The latest proposal, to
extend a derogation concerning the use of malic acid until a wine
agreement has been concluded with Argentina, is of itself unobjectionable
but it does beg the question of why the use of this additive is
banned in the first place. It is also difficult to reconcile this
Proposal with the pressure (for example, in the Commission's 2006
Communication) for a ban on the addition of sucrose to wine—a
practice which, we have heard, is important to the UK Wine Industry.
These points having been made, we are content
to release the Proposal from scrutiny.
25 April 2007
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