As the referendum regarding Britain’s membership of the EU approaches, there is a relentless frenzy of news coverage weighing up the opposing views. Inevitably, the wine trade would be affected by an exit, which would either be apocalyptically calamitous or transformationally beneficial, depending on which side you listen to.
However, one EU lobby group is proposing something that all wine lovers can surely agree highlights the very worst features of Brussels bureaucracy – and which has gone hitherto unnoticed by the mainstream media.
The lobbyists, led by a Dutch environmentalist named Rolli Fopa, want to restrict the amount of sparkling wine produced because of its carbon dioxide footprint. Specifically, they highlight the fact that each bottle of sparkling wine contains approximately six grams of dissolved carbon dioxide which is released into the atmosphere when the wine is opened.
‘Globally, sparkling wine consumption is expected to increase by 7.4% between now and 2019', Fopa is quoted as saying in a press release. ‘The total number of bottles produced annually is estimated to reach 2.5 billion. Each and every bottle releases six grams of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, equivalent to 15,000 tonnes.’
The press release continues: ‘Today, every effort must be made to reduce the impact of human activity on climate change. Sparkling wine is a luxury product which is deliberately produced to contain greenhouse gases. It is indefensible to continue with such activity at such unnecessary cost to the planet. We propose a punitive supertax on all sparkling wine produced within the EU, as well as annual production limits, decreasing year on year.’
For some observers, such petty campaigning is the very essence of what is rotten with the EU. If Fopa and his entourage had focused on the increased energy demands of the sparkling winemaking process, there might be some modicum of credibility to their story. As it is, their rhetoric is utterly deranged – though of course their facts are vexingly irrefutable.
Perhaps such blatant bluster is a cynical attempt to grab headlines, but in the crazy world of European government, anything seems possible. Fopa and his cronies will inevitably want to impose their puritanical objective on the UK, since it one of the world’s largest markets for sparkling wine, and they will await the result of the referendum with keen interest, no doubt.
What they will drink to celebrate or commiserate the result remains unknown.