Europe Turning Wine into Fuel
by Lloyd Alter, Toronto on 08.28.07
Americans like their liquor hard and their biofuel subsidy business grain based. In Europe, they subsidize their grape growers to fill wine lakes of unwanted plonk. The European Union is buying 693,376 hectolitres (18,027,776 gallons or 93,744,435 bottles) from Italy, Greece, Spain and France to turn it into biofuel. They call it ""crisis distillation" -- an emergency market tool used as a short-term measure to correct supply imbalances. At least they are honest enough not to call it an energy policy.
Robert Parker gives Shell high octane a 94. ::Reuters
There's a lot of must left over in the wine making process. Traditionally, in Italy, a winemaker might ferment this waste product from wine making and then distill it into grappa. Depsite grappa's trendiness with a handful of people like me, it's my understanding it's viewed as a relatively undesirable liquor.
I can't help but wondering if maybe every wine maker shouldn't start grappa production just to sell for ethanol.