Europe to turn wine into fuel

The European Commission is putting out to tender the opportunity to turn its excess wine into bioethanol.

The European Union currently spends 1.3 billion (US$1.75bn) a year supporting the wine industry.

Up to 7% of this, or 90m goes towards 'crisis distillation', where as much as 45m litres of EU wine, often of undrinkably poor quality, is bought and distilled into ethanol for use as fuel.

Crisis distillation has occurred in four of the past six years.

Michael Mann, commission spokesman for agriculture and rural development said it would be better if Europe stopped making excess wine in the first place.

On July 4, the same day as the deadline for the tendering process, the commissioner for agriculture and rural development Mariann Fischer Boel will propose to the 27 member states that crisis distillation should be stopped, as part of a wider shake-up of the European wine industry.

"People make poor-quality wine because we have this safety net for them it's just a disposal mechanism," says Mann. "It's not our intention that wine should be a basic raw material for biofuels."

If Boel's proposal passes, producers would be encouraged to grow fewer grapes and stick to making high-quality wine.

"Over a five-year period uncompetitive producers would step out," Mann said.

The move is expected to meet resistance, however; wine-making is a major economic and emotional issue in Europe.

200m litres of wine and alcohol from wine by-products will be disposed this year alone.