French laud move to protect rosé

Scheherazade Daneshkhu in Paris and Joshua Chaffin in Brussels

French wine producers on Tuesday declared the rosé wine industry had been “saved“ after the European Commission dropped plans that would have allowed mixing red and white wine to produce rosé.

Coordination Rurale, the agricultural workers’ union, welcomed Brussels’ decision a day earlier to “drop this stupid reform which would have had catastrophic consequences for the producers of rosé wine”.

Mariann Fischer Boel, European agriculture commissioner, unexpectedly maintained on Monday the ban on a practice dubbed “heretical” by Michel Barnier, French agriculture minister.

This followed intense lobbying by France, Italy and Spain, the world’s biggest wine producers, which argued that blending would damage the reputation of the European rosé industry and undermine its traditions, as well as lead potentially to tens of thousands of job losses.

“It’s become clear over recent weeks that a majority in our wine sector believe that ending the ban on blending could undermine the image of traditional rosé,” Ms Fischer Boel said after releasing the decision.

“I am always prepared to listen to good arguments – that’s why I am making this change.”

A commission official dismissed as “complete nonsense” the suggestion on Tuesday that the U-turn was in response to French president Nicolas Sarkozy’s triumph in the European elections or a political gesture by José Manuel Barroso to build support for another term as EC president.

French rosé is made by crushing black grapes and removing the skin from the juice instead of leaving it during fermentation as with red wine. Although rosé still accounts for only a small proportion of wine sold worldwide – about 7 per cent – demand has grown much faster than for red or white wine in recent years.

The distinctive rosé colour results from “a very delicate alchemy”, according to Gilles Masson, director of the Rosé Research and Experimentation Centre in Vidauban, Provence, the southern region which is the centre of French rosé production.

The traditional European way of making rosé accounts for more than 90 per cent of rosé produced worldwide.

The commission proposed the rosé change in 2007 as part of a broad review of the European Union’s wine-making practices. It was motivated, in part, by a desire to create a level-playing field for EU wineries because current rules allow producers from the US and South Africa to sell blended rosé, which is generally cheaper to produce, in the EU.

However, Xavier de Volontat, president of the Association Générale de la Production Viticole, a French wine industry group, said he did not share concerns that the European rosé industry was at danger of being undercut by the blended variety.

“We have the advantage of quality and natural production. Let’s leave it to the consumer to decide which is better,” he said.