With the boycott campaign of a German platform against Huelva strawberries still kicking, another more widespread controversy, related to the agri-food sector, has Castilla-La Mancha as one of the main victims. There, in the center of the Iberian Peninsula, is this region known as the largest vineyard in the world, with more than 400,000 hectares of this crop, which represents around 50% of the surface of Spain. A percentage similar to that of its production, with 13.6 million hectoliters of grapes during the last harvest, and with a significant weight of Castilian-Manchego wine exports, which reached 706 million euros in 2022which represents an increase of 4.1% compared to 2021.
However, the Castilla-La Mancha wine sector is waiting for another unexpected setback: a law signed by Ireland that would enter into force in 2026 and that includes a label on alcoholic beverages that warns of possible harmful effects on their health, including wine. A decision that, if it goes ahead, would set a precedent, as it is the first time that a Member State of the European Union legislate on its own in this matter, contravening the rules of the single European market.
The posture of the Government of Castilla-La Mancha is very clear: “We are against a unilateral decision by an EU member country that affects the common market that we share.” From the autonomous community they have transferred it to the Department of agriculture to defend this position before the community institutions and, as they confirm to ABC, they know that it is doing so. In addition, the head of the regional Executive, Emiliano Garcia-Pageas president of the Assembly of European Wine Regions (AREV), has transferred this position to the Commissioner for Agriculture, the Polish Janusz Wojciechowski.
Sources from the Ministry of Agriculture, Water and Rural Development of Castilla-La Mancha recall that “wine is a food that forms part of the Mediterranean diet pyramid, always consumed in moderation. It is a product that is present in our way of understanding life and that it is not only about something economically important, which it is, but that it is also culturally and socially imbricated”.
Complaint at the European Commission
In fact, the European Committee of Wine Companies (CEEV) already presented a formal complaint to the European Commission in mid-May to open an infringement procedure against Ireland for wine labeling and to reverse this proposal. Something in which the Government of Spain agrees, which months ago requested a response to the Irish proposal. Already in February, several states, including Spain, turned to community institutions because, according to sources from the Ministry of Agriculture, “they can break the single market.” «The marketing conditions for our wines have to be similar in all EU member countries. If a decision has to be made, it must be a community one, not a national one,” they state.
In this same sense, although more critical, spokesperson responsible for Agriculture of the PP in the Cortes of Castilla-La Mancha, Lola Merino, who assures that his formation “will fight with whomever it takes to prevent any wine label from appearing that it is a product that is harmful to health.” “We are not going to allow it to be criminalized because it is a food in the Mediterranean diet. In addition, it is a hallmark of our region, since half of Spanish wine is the result of the work of our farmers and winegrowers from Castilla La Mancha ».
In fact, the popular deputy recalls that in May she was in Brussels together with the president of the regional PP, Paco Núñez, to hold several meetings related to this issue. There, she both spokesperson for the Popular Group in the European Parliament, Dolors Montserrat, as well as the spokesperson for Agriculture in that body, Juan Ignacio Zoidopresented a battery of amendments to avoid this decision by Ireland as a product harmful to health, “something they achieved”, points out Merino, who said that “the ones who should make them look at it are the socialist MEPs, since part of the PSOE delegation voted in favor of labeling wine in those terms, something that is harmful for Spain, in general, and for Castilla-La Mancha in particular».
Some efforts from the Castilian-Lamancha winery sector ask that they be expedited and take into account the damages that it can cause to their businesses. One of those winemakers is Carlos David Bonilla, also president of the Denomination of Origin La Mancha, the largest wine region in this autonomous community, as it covers the provinces of Albacete, Cuenca, Ciudad Real and Toledo. He expresses the “fear” of members of his organization that the Irish legislative initiative could spread to other EU member states.
“We are concerned that little by little they can force us to a perverse label that puts all alcoholic beverages in the bag,” complains Bonilla, who points out to some lobbies Europeans who do not see wine “with good eyes”. For this reason, he believes that “in the medium term” they want to equate the main Castilian-La Mancha product to the same level as spirits.
The president of the DO La Mancha remember, in this sense, that as of December 8, wine producers and winemakers will already be obliged, by a new European regulation, to put a label on bottles and other containers in which a list of ingredients appears, of traceability and origin with nutritional information for the consumer. “Perhaps you start, somehow, by putting this type of information and we end up putting things that are really harmful to the wine,” he points out.
In favor of ingredient and nutritional labeling, the sector spokesperson for wine within the Agro-food Cooperatives of Castilla-La Mancha and winemaker, Juan Fuente Rus, which considers that this type of information is “good” for the consumer. But, in his opinion, “the serious problem is what Ireland is proposing, which has legislated on its own and without consensus within the EU to put indications on the label to warn that alcohol consumption can cause cancer and other diseases. We will not tolerate that.”
