European Union want farmers to destroy vines

So, what's your opinion about this turn of events, Dee Dee?

-E

The nearest I can come knowing first-hand of this kind of 'Economics' is the US paying farmers not to grow wheat (whatever) or produce dairy products(whatever). I can play the devil's advocate to my own opinions most of the time.

I figure this is probably already known to most in the wine world, but some of us aren't aware of it, the reason for the post.

What's your opinion, Emery? Dee, U.S.A.

Hi Dee,

Well, I'm of conflicted opinion, actually. I think you're reading the intervention in the wrong way, because what the article doesn't talk much about is that many of the growers aren't actually selling their wine and are indifferent to quality. As Mike pointed out they are essentially paid to grow unsellable plonk under the current system, with the assurance that it will be bought by the government later on and turned into alcohol.

So in that sense, and in the sense of the planting rights issue, this represents a step forward.

However, I am not really of the opinion that the market is self-regulating and guarantees the best for the consumer. (Maybe the 2006 Bordeaux futures are an example of this! ;)) The most efficient and cost effective operations are not necessarily what I want to drink: although I'm sure Constellation Brands makes some good stuff, too.

So, in a very difficult year, you will have many operations that make decent wine sold at a good price but are barely making ends meet -- family operations that may have worked the same land for generations -- faced with a dangerous choice: grub up the vines (or at least some) and get paid, or borrow from the bank (if even possible) to stay afloat.

Yes, these businesses are facing increasingly stiff competition from New World sources, and some "deserve" (on the quality or abuse-of-system front) to go under. But France's 60,000 independent farmer/winemakers are a cultural and gustatory resource that should not be lightly abandoned. As Bruce Babbitt once said (arguing for tax increases while losing a presidential primary) "If you want to take the airplane you've got to buy the ticket." When it comes to flights of these sometimes interesting and valuable wines, I'm for buying the ticket, and helping out during hard times. Just in the same way I support public funding for hospitals and regulation of the energy sector...

The difficulty lies in how to administer aid, of course and as usual.

cheers,

-E

So have the same problem in Paris as we have in Vienna? Quite interesting ...

M.

Something like this: there are thousands of taxi licenses that somebody has bought up and stashed away and is willing to sell them at extortion prices, and there are few taxis (impossible to hail one after 8pm).

Oh, this is it. Here the licences are free (in priciple), but limited, and all are given out. If you want one, you can buy it from someone who wishes to retire. I don't know about the going rate, but apparently it's not cheap either. But fortunately there is no shortage of taxis at either time of the day.

M.

[Quotation marks ("...") indicate Tommasi text; angle brackets () indicate EU Council Regulation text; my comments are in brackets ([...]). "MT" abbreviates Mike Tommasi.]

"Europe launches wine reform by proposing a new Council Regulation ... "[F]rom 1 January 2014 onwards planting of vines will be free and each grower will become responsible for the decision to plant, based on his assessment of his ability to sell the produce. ... "Gains made from eliminating inefficient current market measures will be compensated by new budgets for

[Translation into rude English: the EU will continue its over-regulation of wine markets from 2014 on -- only the modalities will change.]

"The proposed Regulation restates the legal definition of wine and the procedures and substances that may be used to make wine. The introduction of a new CMO would have been an excellent occasion to redefine wine and to restrict the oenological practices and treatments allowed, limiting or eliminating the more heavy handed treatments intended to 'correct' defective wines, and keeping those that improve the making and conservation of wine.

[A requirement of transparent labeling -- informing the consumer of all relevant information -- is a far better approach than regulating production practices. Knowledge of what is healthy and what isn't is constantly changing and being enriched; so are production and distribution technologies. Regulation of production and distribution practices kills innovation. While traditional wine-making practices are often superior, they are not axiomatically or eternally so, and the producers and consumers should be the ultimate arbiters here, not the slow-moving and special-interest-driven bureaucratic regulators. It will be sufficient for consumers to be accurately informed of ingredients and quantities, time and place of origin, and processing techniques employed.]

"The classification and labelling of EU wines ... "In the current system AOP wines will represent a large percentage of total production, when in fact the highest category of quality wine should be at least below 25% of the total to be credible.

[I think the consumer would find transparent labeling and reputation of vineyard more fine-grained and thus more useful.]

... "But the most burning question I wish to raise about labelling, given the comments in the previous section on the desirability of reducing the number of oenological practices allowed, is the following: why does wine continue to benefit from a special exemption on the marking of ingredients on the label?"

[MT is quite right that ingredients should be labeled. But rather than "reducing the number of oenological practices allowed" -- the bureaucratic-regulatory impulse again -- let the consumer find these clearly labeled on the bottle and decide for himself.]

... "EU wine can only thrive on uncompromising quality, clear understandable labelling, and a clear common classification of quality wine areas throughout Europe."

[Instead of having regulators obsess over defining "quality wine areas," let the label merely specify the precise location of the contributing vineyard(s).]

"While the proposal does address the problem of over-pressing, it would have been desirable to include in this regulation many other quality rules, the most important being the limiting of vine yields, probably a value around 45 hectolitres per hectare, or better, a value expressed in terms of yield per plant.

[Don't regulate allowable yields! Let the producer put this on the bottle if he has something to boast about.]

"Other quality rules could be imagined, for example, enough is known about taste equilibrium to imagine regulating the balance of a wine, at least in terms of acidity and residual sugar -- German law has its own more specific rules on this, but one could write a general rule for all quality wines."

[Yes, yes. Let's create more and more opportunities to restrict production and make work for a larger class of bureaucrat-regulators!

Look, if producers wish to VOLUNTARILY form associations to govern quality standards among their members, they should be free to do so. EU regulators pretending to be gods and preempting both producers and consumers -- that is the evil to be avoided.]

RS