For years New World vineyards have been reducing the alcohol content in wines through technology — and, for years, their European counterparts have sniffily rejected such methods. Now French research has shown that the Americans and the Australians had it right all along.

Tests have proved that techniques previously dismissed as unworthy of European tradition can enable vineyards to lessen alcohol levels by as much as 3 per cent without putting off drinkers. Producers on the Continent are ready to market their bottles in Britain but there is a hitch: officials in Brussels appear intent on banning the new generation of de-alcoholised wines being developed by scientists and vineyard owners.

“It’s absolutely absurd for Europe to prohibit this at a time when health officials are trying to persuade people to consume less alcohol,” said Claude Vialade, who has developed a wine with 9 per cent alcohol, called So Light, on her Domaine Auriol estate in the South of France.

Traditionalists and modernisers continue to disagree over the two main methods for producing wine with a diminished alcohol content. The first involves harvesting grapes which are immature and have a low sugar level, giving rise to a wine naturally low in alcohol. It is authorised in the European Union, but produces bottles dismissed widely as imbuvables (undrinkable). The second uses fully matured grapes to produce a normal wine, from which alcohol is extracted through techniques such as reverse osmosis. This method — de-alcoholisation — is common in Australia and California, but banned under the EU’s arcane winemaking regulations.

However, pressure for reform is building after work conducted by 12 scientific teams co-ordinated by Jean-Louis Escudier, director of the wine unit at the French National Institute for Agronomic Research. His study contradicted the belief that only wines containing between 12 and 14 per cent alcohol were acceptable, suggesting that Europe’s dismissal of New World methods was based on little more than snobbery. Mr Escudier says tests on more than 1,000 people demonstrated that producers could reduce the alcohol content by up to three percentage points without an ordinary drinker noticing. “In blind tastings, French consumers like quality wines with a reduced alcohol content as much as standard wines,” his report said.

“In other words, you can go from 14 per cent to 11 per cent or from 13 per cent to 10 per cent without a problem,” Mr Escudier told The Times.

The issue is sensitive at a time when French wine consumption has slumped to 43 litres per head in 2008 — down from 47 litres the previous year and 120 litres in 1959 — largely as a result of health and drink-driving campaigns.

André Barlier, sales and planning director at FranceAgriMer, the French agricultural statistics office, said: “The situation . . . can now be described as depressing and worrying.”

Brussels is proposing a small change in EU regulations to authorise dealcoholisation for the first time — but only by a maximum of two percentage points.

Global warming to blame

— The alcohol content in wines in southern France, Italy and Spain has increased by 2-3 per cent over the past 15 years, according to Jean-Louis Escudier, director of the wine unit at the French National Institute for Agronomic Research.

— Whereas a standard bottle used to contain 11 per cent or 12 per cent alcohol, now 13 per cent or 14 per cent is common.

— The main reason is global warming, which results in riper grapes, with higher sugar levels — which gives rise after fermentation to more alcohol, he says.

— This has been compounded by a tendency for vineyards to plant grape varieties that produce more sugar in an attempt to meet the perceived international demand for sweet, fruity wines.

— Mr Escudier said improved winemaking techniques also enabled producers to harvest later, ensuring riper grapes.

— Another reason for the trend lay in yield reductions, which tended to foster more concentrated and therefore alcoholic wines.

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