Sixty government and wine industry delegates from Argentina, Australia, Canada, Chile, New Zealand, South Africa and the US attended the World Wine Trade Group (WWTG) meeting in Cape Town from Monday to Wednesday this week.
A representative said in a statement on Wednesday that the WWTG, formerly the New World Wine Producers’ Forum, had met to address trends and policy developments in the global wine trade.
Representatives from Brazil and Uruguay attended as observers.
The group welcomed Argentina’s announcement that it would sign the Mutual Acceptance Agreement (MAA) on oenological practices. South Africa was in the process of finalising its decision on the MAA.
Australia, Canada, Chile, New Zealand and the US had already signed the MAA.
The decision to change the name of the group to the World Wine Trade Group reflected the group’s focus on facilitating trade in wine. Under the MAA the group had already agreed to mutually accept the winemaking practices of the other parties to the agreement.
In pursuing its objective of removing unnecessary trade restrictions, the WWTG discussed elements of a labelling agreement that would benefit consumers and facilitate trade in wine.
It was agreed that the technical working group would continue this work and present a draft labelling agreement at the next meeting, to be held in Argentina later this year.
The WWTG was concerned about the new European Union wine labelling regulation that could have a negative effect on wine exports to the EU. It was also concerned about the consistency of the new regulation with World Trade Organisation (WTO) rules. – Sapa