The hotly debated reform of the wine scheme within the EU agricultural policy has finally been agreed. Albeit a substantially weaker reform than originally proposed by commissioner Mariann Fischer-Boel it is still a step in the right direction. There will be a voluntary plan to uproot (grub up) 175,000 ha of vines to reduce the wine surplus, much less than the proposed 400,000 ha. Subsidies for distillation of surplus wine will be phased out and a budget will be allocated to promoting the consumption of European wines (outside of Europe of course…). Chaptalisation (addition of sugar), however, will not be outlawed as opposed to what was originally proposed. Read more: decanter.com, and on vitisphere.com
