General context:
In the recent past, there has been an increasing demand for organic and inherently ‘green’ wine products which started with solid growth in the nineties and continues up to today. This is generally attributed to a variety of reasons. Firstly the increased awareness of climate change and global warming has seen a push for manufacturers and producers to explore more sustainable ways of making their products and show their green credentials.
Organic farms may sometimes have lower overall input costs as opposed to conventional farms, due to a lack of need for fertilizers and chemicals, but conversely, often have higher labor costs and are not as easy to farm as conventional farms. Secondly, growing consumer concern over some agricultural production methods and a demand for products that they perceive as cleaner and greener has led to an increased demand for organic products. In a more environmentally conscious environment as seen in recent times, people want to look after not only the planet, but also themselves. Worldwide demand for organic products is reported to be increasing rapidly.
European Context:
The European Union has shown an increasing demand for organic wine. More and more new organically based wineries are being established and old traditional wineries want to add organic wine to their product line. This means organic wine are no longer the province of small family wineries with no market share. Many stores, particularly in the United Kingdom are becoming extremely eco and health conscious in the wake of public demand and now stock large ranges of organic varieties of wine.
Recently a code of good organic viticulture and wine-making has been developed by the EU with organic viticulture and winemaking:
development of environment and consumer friendly technologies for organic wine quality improvement and scientifically based legislative framework”. This was followed by a new regulation that was starting the 1st of August 2012, the wine may therefore be called bio/organic from the 2012 harvest when the manufacturer certifies that his wine were produced in compliance with the new regulations. However some approaches concerning organic vine and wine production need to be harmonized in function of specific constraints that can have each European countries of wine countries (climate, appellation rules, certification, product ageing).
For this reason, the 5 universities specialized in oenology /agronomy of Bordeaux (model of Atlantic climate), Tarragona and Torino (models of Mediterranean climate), Geisenheim (model of continental climate) and Bucharest (model of eastern countries) are complementary to shared their experience and teaching specialties concerning organic vine and wine production to student involved in enology production. The demand of knowledge concerning organic vine and wine production is now increasing by industry and the needs of specialization of oenologists' students in this field is actually a necessity. The Universities of Bordeaux,
Tarragona, Torino, Bucharest and Geisenheim have all recognized viticulture and oenology formation at the undergraduate and graduate levels and are involved in students' exchanges and research collaboration in this field. Two non-academic partners are also involved in the project.
Today there is no harmonized European programme in organic vine and wine production. Our project purpose is to build 3 specific sections for students in this field in view of their future professional activities and professors in order to develop their teaching experience and exchange on this field.:
1. Dedicated an e-learning infrastructure and e-learning courses regularly update (Learning Management System) and develop an innovative support in sensory practical work teaching for students
2. Intensive Study Programmes (progressively open to professional sector)
3. General assemblies devoted to the program development