In the battle to find a niche in the fiercely competitive wine market, a Uruguayan vineyard is making wine without sugar aimed at the growing number of diabetics.
The 119-year-old Vinos de la Cruz family vineyard in the middle of the pampas has tapped into a flourishing new market because of the spread of the disease.
"As Uruguay is not known on a world level, our idea was to find a parallel way to find different consumers for organic wine," said Juan Jose Arocena, director of the 60-hectare vineyard which is about 100km from Montevideo.
The family decided in 1997 to devote half of their land to natural methods and not use chemicals or synthetic agents. Animal manure became the fertilizer of choice. The changeover took four years.
De la Cruz discovered its new niche when the first bottles were marketed in 2002. A diabetes sufferer accidentally discovered the wine and approached the vineyard.
"When this person found out that it did not affect his glycemia, he came to see us," Arocena said.
Analysis, which was certified by a US laboratory, showed that the wine did not contain any sugar.
In the aerated vats, the yeast completely changes the natural sugar in the grapes into alcohol. Experts believe this is because the sugar is not affected by chemical agents used by other vineyards, which kill the yeast when it is 90 percent fermented.
"We still do not know the exact reason for this phenomenon," said Arocena, who added that he had not come across a similar example on any of his visits to wine fairs.
He believes the reason could be linked to the soil at the vineyard.
"Wines that were made before the discovery of fungicides and herbicides probably also did not have sugar, but no one carried out tests then," he said. "Diabetes was not a problem as it is now."
Eight percent of the world population has diabetes and in the US, the figure is now 14 percent.
De la Cruz's wines have an alcoholic content of 11.5 percent and sell for an average price of US$20 to middle class consumers who are ready to pay a higher price for the ecologically friendly wine.
Its production is 30 percent below that of traditional vineyards because of its natural methods.
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