AMERICA VS. EUROPE: THE ORGANIC DIVIDE
By BLAKE GRAY — Posted Wednesday 05-Feb-2014
An exploration of the debate over organic wine between the U.S. and the European Union.
The thing you could notice at Millésime Bio, the huge organic wine trade show in Montpellier, France, is that organic wine is booming in Europe. But nobody there talks about being organic. Both production and consumption of organic wine are skyrocketing in Europe, while across the Atlantic Ocean, organic wine is a niche product. The difference is all in the definition.
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In 2012, the European Union decided to allow the use of « organic wine » as a term for the first time, and decided that organic wine could include sulfites.
This was the exact opposite of a 2011 decision in the U.S., where the National Organic Standards Board denied a petition to allow sulfites in « organic wine. » (suite…)