Power Shift in World Wine Community

The EU is instructing struggling European winemakers to follow the example of their increasingly successful New World counterparts in NZ, Australia, and America. The “wine lake” situation in Europe has now reached crisis point, with one in six bottles being converted to fuel or industrial disinfectant because it cannot be sold. The EU, led by agriculture chief Mariann Fischer Boel, has pointed to New World producers’ modern production techniques and simple, user-friendly labels as the main factors behind their success. “Exports of our main competitors have exploded. We are producing too much wine for which there is no market,” she says.