EU: Ban on Sugar in Wine Negotiable

The European Union's top agriculture official said Tuesday a planned blanket ban on adding sugar to wine _ a key part of planned reforms to the EU wine sector _ may be amended after strong opposition by many EU members.

EU Farm Commissioner Mariann Fischer Boel said she was well aware of the concerns voiced by countries with a cooler climate, such as Germany, Austria, Luxembourg and the Czech Republic, where vintners use sugar to boost alcohol content in mass-market wines.

"There has been a huge row about this, and I haven't blocked my ears to this ... but a status quo does hold a genuine problem," Fischer Boel told the European Parliament, which was to vote on the draft reform on Wednesday.

Fischer Boel also said wine enrichment with pure must grape juice _ practiced in southern countries while northern nations use sugar _ must not continue at the current levels.

"It's an old fashioned, costly, trade-distorting measure. I am not inclined to accept the status quo. Any compromise would mean new conditions," she said.

The reforms are aimed at reversing falling wine sales in Europe by producing more quality wines, and at reducing "wine lakes" that cost hundreds of millions of euros to get rid of.

The European Commission says the bloated EU wine industry must cut overproduction or risk further decline in the face of increased imports of New World wines.

The proposed reform suggests pulling up unprofitable vineyards, ending subsidies for massive and costly distillation of unsold wine into industrial products and harmonizing labeling to make it more consumer-friendly.

The EU member states aim for a deal by the end of the year, although the most contentious issues are yet to be settled. These include the sugar ban, how to support producers of lower-quality wines who decide to stop production and when to liberalize planting rights for vintners producing profitable wines on areas previously not used as vineyards.