On this occasion, he expressed the wish to give new impetus to the collaboration between Slovenia and the OIV.
The Director General praised this desire, which falls within the framework of an already close collaboration; this is particularly reflected in the OIV's patronage of the Vino Ljubljana international wine competition, which will take place on 30 June to 2 July this year.
Jean-Marie Aurand called for an increased presence of Slovenian experts in the work of the OIV. He also mentioned the possibility of Slovenia organising a presentation of its wines at the Organisation's headquarters.
Slovenian viticulture has a long history. Its cultivation of vines dates back to Celtic times, 2500 years ago: Maribor's Stara Trta , planted in the 16th century, is considered the oldest vine in the world.
For several years now, the Slovenian vitivinicultural sector has seen a thorough revival with the relaunch of a policy of quality wines, drawing notably on a great variety of terroirs and the development of native vine varieties.
Slovenian production has established itself at an average of 600 000 hL of wines per year, 75% of each are white wines. More than 70% of wines benefit from a designation of origin.
On this occasion, Jean-Marie Aurand – after having recalled the main missions of the OIV – gave a panorama of the state of the global vitivinicultural sector, highlighting the major trends and issues for the future.
Within this context, the discussions focused on a certain number of strategic and topical issues:
- the importance of standards, including those which are internationally recognised, in maintaining the essential characteristics of wine and ensuring the fluidity of trade,
- the role of the OIV as an intergovernmental reference organisation on the subject,
- the principles for setting additive limits,
- perspectives with regard to the labelling of ingredients.
Jean-Marie Aurand praised the quality of the collaboration developed over the years between the OIV and Oenoppia, which benefits from OIV observer status. The Oenoppia teams provide recognised expertise within the different expert groups of the Organisation and have been at the origin of several resolutions.
Oenoppia is an association that brings together the main stakeholders in the production of oenological products. Oenoppia members account for almost 90% of oenological products used in the world.
Monika Christmann presented the OIV, its objectives, its role and statistical data on the current state of the global viticultural market.
A meeting of the OIV Russian National Liaison Committee, which was open to the public, was also held as part of this conference. This meeting generated tremendous interest from participants and players in the field. During the meeting, Tatiana Svinartchuk presented the Organisation's operating procedures as well as the main regulatory documents discussed and developed by the OIV.
Issues of international cooperation in the development and application of standards of production and commercialisation of wine and other international vitivinicultural products were presented and discussed. More specifically, emphasis was placed upon the importance of the application of international standards in national regulations; this is in order to avoid potential problems of compliance for local producers and also commercial concerns with regard to importers and exporters.
The training of specialists in oenology and viticulture was seen as a key point. The President of the OIV highlighted the importance of international student exchange programmes.
Following the conference, visits to Russian vineyards (Abrau-Durso, Vedernikov, Usadba Divnomorskoye, Elbuzd, Lefkadiya) were organised for the OIV representatives and conference participants. The very high technical level and excellent quality of the wines were praised by the OIV President.
This visit should also make it possible to foster the participation of the Russian delegation in the work of the OIV.
After focusing on sparkling wines in 2014 and rosé in 2015, the International Organisation of Vine and Wine (OIV) in collaboration with the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) presents a new study about this very important part of the OIV field of expertise, grapes being the fruit crop with the highest total value of production in the world.
The study presents some key facts regarding food use and the nutritional value of the grape family products, as well as time series since 2000 on domestic production, exports and imports, market size, and apparent consumption.
The Director General of the OIV, Jean-Marie Aurand, as well as the deputy Director of the Statistics Division of the FAO, José Rosero Moncayo underlined that this publication is the tangible output of the good and long-standing FAO-OIV cooperation.
