This competition, organised by the Institute under the patronage of the OIV, brought together nearly 300 samples from 15 countries and was a real success. A conference was held as a prelude to the contest, during which Jean-Marie Aurand presented the state of the global vitivinicultural market and its trends, underlining the role of the OIV within this context.

During a meeting with the Vice Minister for Agriculture, Mr Sergey Levin, the Minister presented the programme for the development of Russian viticulture, which was recently adopted by the government, to the Director General. This programme anticipates a doubling of the vineyard surface area between now and 2020, with the objective of reaching an area of 140 kha. The legislative framework is also under revision, including the production of a bill on the protection of geographical indications. It is within this context that the Vice Minister has indicated his desire to strengthen the involvement of Russia in the various working structures of the OIV. Jean-Marie Aurand praised these developments. He also noted the importance of international standards such as those drawn up by the OIV within a context of growing globalisation of the wine and spirits trade and increasingly demanding consumer expectations in relation to product quality and authenticity.

Finally, the Director General was paid a warm welcome at the Russian Academy of Sciences and met with the Russian Union of Oenologists and Winemakers.

This year, the exhibition brought together 1000 exhibitors (150 more than in 2013) from 25 different countries.

Several technical conferences were also organised in connection with this exhibition, for example, on environmental concerns (water and pesticide management, etc.) and on the issue of diseases linked to vine dieback (diagnostic tools, etc.).

During this technical conference, a number of speakers underlined the important role that bulk wine plays in changing consumption habits, marketing and business strategies.

14% of world wine production is intended to be sold in bulk, which, in 2014, represented almost 38 million hectolitres (mhl), corresponding to around 38% of the total volume of world exports.

With 12.4 mhl, Spain is the leading exporting country of bulk wine, followed by Italy (5.5 mhl) and Australia (4.0 mhl). With respect to imports, these increased by around 15.5% between 2010 and 2014.

These discussions, in which the Director General of the OIV took part, brought important experts and award winners from the Academy together around three round tables: viticulture and oenology, legislation and the market, and wine and culture.

The idea of this discussion, as for the publication, was to compare the award winners' prospective vision of the wine world to that of leading figures who have modelled it so far.

Founded in 1992 by Américo Amorim, President of the Amorim group (the leading company in the world for cork production), the mission of the Academy is to improve knowledge about wine and support oenological research. It is for this reason that every year it presents two awards to young oenology students or young authors in the fields of wine-related sociology or legal expertise.

The Amorim Academy has observer status at the OIV.

Ministers in charge of agriculture or the environment, or alternatively their representatives, from Germany, Australia, Bulgaria, Spain, Estonia, France, Japan, Lithuania, Morocco, New Zealand, Poland and Uruguay also participated in this day, as well as the Director-General of the FAO, and representatives from the World Bank, IFAD, numerous research institutes and Non-Governmental Organisations. The work essentially focused on the contribution of agriculture to CO2 sequestration as part of the international research initiative 4 per 1000.

The objective is to strengthen public policies and research programmes in order to increase stocks of organic material from soils by 0.4% per year. Such an increase would make it possible to compensate for all of the planet's greenhouse gas emissions. Carbon sequestration in agricultural soils is one of the contributions of agriculture and forestry, in order to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

The OIV has joined forces with this initiative, which strives for a transition towards productive and sustainable agriculture founded, in particular, on adapted soil management.

These objectives largely coincide with the actions underway at the OIV with regard to sustainable viticulture and climate change.

The OIV, which has placed the promotion of sustainable viticulture at the top of its 5 strategic axes for 2015-2019, taking into account the challenges of climate change, adopted the General Principles of the OIV Greenhouse Gas Accounting Protocol for the Vine and Wine Sector in 2011 (Resolution OIV-CST 431-2011)

This protocol defines principles for the calculation of emissions and sequestration of greenhouse gases (GHG), expressed in the carbon dioxide equivalent, for the vitivinicultural field.

The specific objectives of the OIV GHG protocol are:

• to help companies working in the vitivinicultural sector to prepare a GHG inventory that represents a true and fair account of their emissions, through the use of standardised approaches and principles,
• to simplify and reduce the costs of compiling a GHG inventory,
• to provide the sector with information that can be used to implement effective strategies to manage and reduce GHG emissions,
• to increase consistency and transparency in GHG accounting and reporting among various companies and GHG programmes.

On this basis, in 2015 the OIV adopted an inventory of emissions and sequestrations that is intended to provide specific information on the aspects to be taken into consideration for the calculation of GHG emissions of a company or particular product based on the area considered (Resolution OIV-CST 503AB-2015).

This work is continuing within the framework of the work programme so as to develop a frame of reference for data collection by developing a detailed, multi-criteria approach going beyond the solely "carbon" approach while paying particular attention to the aspects of water management, biodiversity and pesticide reduction.