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Written by Urs Tobler
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Tuesday, 30 November 2004 |
We live in a world in which food production is dominated by the agro-chemical
industry. Our foods are produced industrially, fertilised, sprayed, processed
and packed from soil to supermarket shelf, but the long-term effects on health
are not known, or at least, the consumer has not been informed.
Wine is no exception, and the residues of up to 240 chemicals have been found
in conventional wines. Some wine producing areas are worse than others in the
amount of chemical spraying with weed-killer and fungicides that is being carried
out. According to Monty Waldin, a leading expert on organic wines, the rich wine
areas of Bordeaux, Burgundy, Champagne and Australia use chemicals in abundance
practically as insurance because the grapes are so valuable. Waldin cites countries
such as Chile and Portugal as being amongst the worst offenders in terms of chemical
abuse where spraying is carried out by poorly trained vineyard workers who suffer
illness as a result and whose children have been born with deformities.
Fortunately, organic wine offers a healthy alternative. Organic wine producers
are growing not only in numbers, but also from strength to strength in terms of
quality and public consciousness. By the very nature of organic production, the
vineyards are small to medium sized, concentrating on quality rather than quantity.
This, however, also presents organic vineyards with their greatest problem. Wine
is a produce that is amongst the most vulnerable of agricultural products in terms
of pesticide residues. These vineyards are more often than not adjacent to conventional
vineyards where the risk of contamination through wind drift is very high, especially
when the spraying is done by helicopters.
Furthermore, small producers might not be able to process the grapes themselves
and the wine is made in a winery that also produces conventional wine, thus leaving
the door wide open for contamination in the cellar. If the fittings are not cleaned
thoroughly and filters are not changed before processing the organic grapes, traces
of chemicals could easily enter the wine.
In 2000 a laboratory in Central Switzerland analyzed 83 organic and 25 conventional
wines for pesticide residues. It searched for traces of 81 pesticides which are
not allowed in organic wine production. Certain products such as copper and sulphur
are permitted in organic production but the action level for organic produce is
at 0.01 mg/kg and is 50 to 100 times lower than that for conventionally produced
wines.
The result was that 74 out of the 83 organic wines tested were below the action
level of 0.01 mg/kg and 7 were slightly above the 0.01 mg/kg and two wines had
the same level as the very best of the conventional ones. The 9 wines with levels
above the action level for organic wine caused a negative sensation in the national
press in Switzerland.
In the search for the source of contamination the above mentioned explanations
could be traced. In addition the organic wine producers demanded that the same
test be done on conventional wines and that the results also be published. The
result demonstrates why sensitive people react strongly to conventional wines.
Of the 25 conventional wines tested the level of residues found was between 0.06
mg/kg to 0.42 mg/kg.
Source: www.bio-suisse.ch
Wines which have been certified as organic fulfil extremely stringent criteria
which have to be adhered to in both viticulture and viniculture. Organic produce,
however, can only be as "clean" as the environment it is grown in.
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