Trojan Horse

It would appear that dealcoholized “wine” is following a parallel path to traditional wine. But how can we be sure that tomorrow the beverage giants – the only ones who can afford the expensive process to dealcoholize wine – will not try to replace our beloved wine?

A European Union regulation, adopted on December 2, 2021, allows the term wine to also be applied to products that have been totally or partially dealcoholized, eliminating the obligation for wines to have an alcoholic content of at least 8% (9% in Mediterranean countries) to be defined as wine. Various EU members have still to ratify this regulation and Italy has yet to do so.

What is this all about? It allows a very invasive procedure designed to remove a wine’s alcoholic component. This is done through cross flow filtration and with the employment of very sophisticated and expensive machinery, which are totally out of reach for medium-sized producers. Nevertheless, this process can only be used for wines without any denomination, while IGT, DOC and DOCG classified wines must by regulation have a minimum alcoholic content. For this to change, regulations would have to be modified and approved by producers and producer associations, for example, and then ratified by the European Commission for DOC wines and by the EU itself.

It seems highly unlikely that it will come to this unless, with specific regulations, it becomes so convenient that it convinces many producers to adopt the process. There are already examples of this, even in Italy, and for various reasons, even religious ones, involving those who cannot or do not wish to consume alcoholic beverages and seek a practical option, I suppose.

The full picture is still not clear. You may recall how over the past months there has been an authentic attack on wine and alcoholic beverages for health reasons, even on the part of the European Commission. All this could lead, in the near future, to limit, if not eliminate, EU funding for the promotion and export of wine, like the OCM wine measure organization. The logic here is that if wine is harmful, then it should not be promoted. But if wine is dealcoholized, then this would be a different matter. I do not wish to be a conspiracy theorist, however, I find it rather odd that two EU initiatives are surprisingly going in the same direction.

Be that as it may, I do not wish to downplay problems related to alcohol abuse but only to point out that the concerted goals of these regulatory initiatives represent, in my view, a Trojan Horse that risks creating problems for the winemaking sector and put into question wine as part of Mediterranean tradition and not only there. I hope I may be wrong, but I am afraid that, in some 20 years or more, the leading international beverage giants may get their hands on the production of dealcoholized wine, receiving funds for its production and promotion, and in line with Gresham’s law (bad money drives out the good, ed.note), this will crush a significant amount of the market for the wine we know and love. And, who knows, we may one day find ourselves having to deal with a dealcoholized Barolo or Brunello?