As if there aren’t reasons for us to throw our hands up in despair and cry out that the sky is falling in, what with the global economy, crime and so on, there is now a report doing the rounds saying that wine contains dangerously high levels of metals.
It was first reported on WebMD and started spreading. I am not a scientist of any description so won’t comment on the findings – which you can take a look at here – but I was curious to see there was no mention of South African wine in the 16 countries involved in the study. It would be pretty strange to leave South Africa out, as it’s one of the top 10 wine producing countries in the world. Also, the WebMD article, which quotes the scientists involved, mentions heavy metals; while the report only seems to mention metals.
I put a call into the folk at ARC Infruitec-Nietvoorbij to find out more. This organisation is a research facility for the South African deciduous fruit, grape, wine and brandy industries.
Acting programme manager for post-harvest and wine technology, Ockert Augustyn, assured me that to his knowledge “there is no reason to be afraid of a negative health effect of metals in South African wine.” As far as he is aware, the metal levels in South African wines are within the safe limits.
He said the organisation is preparing for a new study on metals in wine, but to explore how they affect the shelf life of specifically South African white wine. There are some indications that the metals could contribute to instability in the wine that results in early aging, but that they are not a “health hazard”.
Deep sighs of relief all round. Until I hear otherwise, I am going be cracking open a bottle of SA wine in celebration.
Meanwhile questions are being raised about the study so I’ll keep you posted with any developments about what this means for the wines from the countries identified in the report.
