Some EU lawmakers are fuming over a new US wine trade agreement, saying they're being force-fed such New World innovations as subbing wood chips for barrel aging or even, quelle horreur, adding water.
US winemakers contend that their practices are legitimate -- and point out the Old World has wine wiles of its own.
At issue is a clash between the tradition-bound, heavily regulated European wine industry and a much younger US wine industry that came of age during a technological revolution.
PHOTO: AP
"The difference in the New World -- and it's not just California and the United States, it's Australia and New Zealand as well -- is: Is there a more efficient way to do something with technology?" said Roger Boulton, enology professor at the University of California, Davis.
"The question is when is it modifying and manipulating it and when is it a traditional practice just done in a more effective way. That's really the debate," he said.
Underlying the winemaking quarrel are market realities.
Although the EU continues to export far more wine than the US, Australian and US wines -- along with imports from Chile and other countries -- have been making gains in the European market.
According to the San Francisco-based Wine Institute, a trade association, the US exported US$736 million worth of wine last year, an increase of nearly 30 percent over 2003, with nearly US$500 million of that going to the European Community. Major European wine producers exported US$2.3 billion worth of wine last year to the US, down slightly from 2003 largely due to French exports dropping 7.6 percent to a little less than half that total.
Meanwhile, Australian wine exports have also been booming. In the highly competitive UK market, sales of Australian wine more than doubled from 126.8 million liters in 1999 to 254.8 million liters last year, according to wine industry consultant Jon Fredrikson of Gomberg, Fredrikson & Associates.
"What I think really is happening is that the marketplace is voting for California wine in a resounding landslide," said Eric Wente, CEO of Wente Vineyards and Wine Institute chairman. "What they're [critics] seeking to do is use legislation to combat their inability to change winemaking styles, their wine quality and their approach to the marketplace."
Under the accord, reached by negotiators in Washington last month, the US and the EU agreed to recognize each other's winemaking practices. Meanwhile, the US administration agreed to ask Congress to stop US producers from using names such as sherry, port and Champagne that derive from European wine-growing regions.
A spokeswoman for the Trade Representative's office said they will work with the US Congress on finding the best way to introduce the legislation once the agreement is signed, possibly later this fall.
In a compromise, the deal grandfathers in established brands, irking European producers.
The agreement has to be approved by the 25 EU member states, and some EU parliamentarians have been loud in their disdain.
"I don't want a McDonald's type chardonnay," said Anne Laperrouze, a representative from France.
However, officials with the Office of the US Trade Representative said they are hopeful the agreement will be approved later this fall.
US producers note that some of the differences in how wine is made in Europe and the US are climate-driven.
In the sunny Napa Valley, for instance, where grapes are often picked very ripe with high sugar levels that lead to high alcohol content, it's legal to add water to the grape juice in limited amounts. Meanwhile, in the Burgundy region of France, where rainy, cold weather can result in low-sugar grapes, winemakers are sometimes allowed to add sugar.
Then there's the issue of technology such as spinning cones that can remove alcohol and machines that expose wine to small amounts of oxygen to save the cost of "racking" -- moving wine from one barrel or tank to another.
Wine technology is often used to make inexpensivewines, said Karen MacNeil, chair of the wine department of the Culinary Institute of America's California branch.
And not just in the US.
"Big wine companies who make cheap wine the world over have the same machines hiding in the same warehouses," MacNeil said.
The oak chip issue, also a sore point, doesn't involve machinery so much as a shortcut. Floating oak chips or larger pieces of wood in wine can give similar flavors to those obtained through storing it in the much more expensive barrels.
The government is aiming to recruit 1,096 foreign English teachers and teaching assistants this year, the Ministry of Education said yesterday. The foreign teachers would work closely with elementary and junior-high instructors to create and teach courses, ministry official Tsai Yi-ching (蔡宜靜) said. Together, they would create an immersive language environment, helping to motivate students while enhancing the skills of local teachers, she said. The ministry has since 2021 been recruiting foreign teachers through the Taiwan Foreign English Teacher Program, which offers placement, salary, housing and other benefits to eligible foreign teachers. Two centers serving northern and southern Taiwan assist in recruiting and training
WIDE NET: Health officials said they are considering all possibilities, such as bongkrekic acid, while the city mayor said they have not ruled out the possibility of a malicious act of poisoning Two people who dined at a restaurant in Taipei’s Far Eastern Department Store Xinyi A13 last week have died, while four are in intensive care, the Taipei Department of Health said yesterday. All of the outlets of Malaysian vegetarian restaurant franchise Polam Kopitiam have been ordered to close pending an investigation after 11 people became ill due to suspected food poisoning, city officials told a news conference in Taipei. The first fatality, a 39-year-old man who ate at the restaurant on Friday last week, died of kidney failure two days later at the city’s Mackay Memorial Hospital. A 66-year-old man who dined
‘CARRIER KILLERS’: The Tuo Chiang-class corvettes’ stealth capability means they have a radar cross-section as small as the size of a fishing boat, an analyst said President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) yesterday presided over a ceremony at Yilan County’s Suao Harbor (蘇澳港), where the navy took delivery of two indigenous Tuo Chiang-class corvettes. The corvettes, An Chiang (安江) and Wan Chiang (萬江), along with the introduction of the coast guard’s third and fourth 4,000-tonne cutters earlier this month, are a testament to Taiwan’s shipbuilding capability and signify the nation’s resolve to defend democracy and freedom, Tsai said. The vessels are also the last two of six Tuo Chiang-class corvettes ordered from Lungteh Shipbuilding Co (龍德造船) by the navy, Tsai said. The first Tuo Chiang-class vessel delivered was Ta Chiang (塔江)
RESTAURANT POISONING? Deputy Minister of Health and Welfare Victor Wang at a press conference last night said this was the first time bongkrekic acid was detected in Taiwan An autopsy discovered bongkrekic acid in a specimen collected from a person who died from food poisoning after dining at the Malaysian restaurant chain Polam Kopitiam, the Ministry of Health and Welfare said at a news conference last night. It was the first time bongkrekic acid was detected in Taiwan, Deputy Minister of Health and Welfare Victor Wang (王必勝) said. The testing conducted by forensic specialists at National Taiwan University was facilitated after a hospital voluntarily offered standard samples it had in stock that are required to test for bongkrekic acid, he said. Wang told the news conference that testing would continue despite