Since August 1, 2012, winemakers have been able to use the term “organic wine” and affix the European logo on the label; the entire production process for obtaining organic wine has finally been regulated.
Italy is one of the largest European countries that produces and exports organic wine, and this regulation fills a legislative gap that had left wine produced from organic farming without any definition for about twenty years.
The regulation establishes the permitted winemaking practices, identifies the use of certain products and substances authorized for organic wine and also clarifies that organic wine is made only with organic grapes.
The regulation also provides that not only wines from the 2012 harvest onwards will be able to use the term “organic wine” and the related European logo, but also wines from previous years, provided that it can be demonstrated that the winemaking techniques used have complied with the specifications of the regulation in question.
Regarding winemaking practices, the following are prohibited:
a) partial cold concentration;
(b) elimination of sulphur dioxide by physical processes;
(c) electrodialysis treatment to ensure tartaric stabilization of the wine;
(d) partial dealcoholisation of the wine;
(e) treatment with cation exchangers to ensure tartaric stabilization of the wine.
The use of the following oenological practices, processes and treatments is permitted under the following conditions:
(a) for heat treatments, the temperature may not exceed 70 °C;
(b) for centrifugation and filtration, with or without inert filtration aid, the pore size may not be less than 0.2 micrometres.
As regards ingredients and processing aids, almost all those of natural origin (vegetable, animal and microbiological, including yeasts and bacteria) are permitted, with the recommendation to prefer organic origin when available, and synthetic ones are limited.
For oenological yeasts, the use of organic ones is mandatory only if they are of the type/strain suitable for the winemaking that can be carried out. In other cases, conventional selected yeasts can be used, if they are not GMO, or obviously spontaneous fermentation or with one’s own yeasts (also purified and freeze-dried).
One of the rules of the aforementioned regulation sets the maximum sulphite content for red wine at 100 mg per litre (150 mg/l for conventional wine) and for white/rosé wine at 150 mg/l (200 mg/l for conventional wine); there is also the possibility of increasing the sulphite content, subject to approval by the competent authority, in particularly difficult years if the exceptional weather conditions of a given campaign deteriorate the health situation of organic grapes in a given geographical area due to serious bacterial or fungal attacks.