Framingham Noble Riesling ‘Ere We Come?

For years, due to a crazy loophole or lack of agremeent between New Zealand and the EU, we have been unable to ship the Framingham super-sweeties. Potential alcohol, don’t you know. It finally looks like this anomaly has been redressed. Here is an e-mail from John Barker, PhD, Manager, Policy and Membership, New Zealand Winegrowers.

To all wineries:

The New Zealand Food Safety Authority has issued a new Notice of Overseas Market Access Requirements for the EU market (including the UK). It will apply new EU winemaking rules and definitions to New Zealand wine exports. This notice will comes into effect on 14 December 2009. There are some very positive changes for the industry:

Sweet and high alcohol wines are finally able to access the EU market, provided they comply with certain winemaking and labelling requirements;

Limits for some key parameters such as minimum alcohol, maximum alcohol, sulphur dioxide and volatile acidity have been relaxed;

There is a new list of geographical indications, but other geographical terms can still be used in conjunction with the listed indications.