Toxins found in SA wine 28 March 2008

But local authorities say the level is acceptably low  

The wine industry worldwide got a wake-up call this week when a study conducted by the Pesticide Action Network Europe (PAN-Europe), a body monitoring and lobbying for the reduction of toxins in agricultural products, showed a vast majority of samples tested to have what it regarded as unacceptable levels of ‘dangerous toxins’.

A single Stellenbosch wine was among the 34 of 40 tested that failed the test. But South Africa’s Integrated Production of Wine (IPW) producers' organisation said the levels of the specific toxins identified was low and at an acceptable level.

PAN-Europe analysed 40 bottles of wine from around the world: 13 from France, ten each from Austria and Germany, three from Italy, and one each from Australia, Chile and South Africa. The organisation suggested that this ‘systematic infection’ was a worldwide problem.

However, Jacques Rossouw, head of IPW, told Die Burger’s Pieter Malan that the levels of dimethomorph and flusilazol found by PAN-Europe were far lower than the strictest specified minimum for these substances in any wine-producing country.

‘In ten years of regular testing, the IPW and the Department of Agriculture have never found a single case of wine or grapes being contaminated with unacceptably high levels of toxins.’

Link to the full report