Monika Christmann elected as President

Having been involved in the activities of the OIV for around 20 years, Prof. Dr. Christmann was unanimously elected by the States present. An oenology teacher and researcher at the Geisenheim Research Institute, she was formerly President of the OIV "Oenology" Commission and OIV Vice-President for 3 years, after being elected by the Scientific and Technical Committee.

Monika Christmann will be supported in her new role by a new Steering Committee, since the General Assembly also elected the following as:

President of the "Viticulture" Commission: Benjamin Bois (France)

President of the "Oenology" Commission: Luigi Moio (Italy)

President of the "Economy and Law" Commission: Tony Battaglene (Australia)

President of the “Safety and Health” Commission: Nuria García Tejedor (Spain)

President of the "Methods of Analysis" Sub-Commission: Ondřej Mikeš (Czech Republic)

President of the "Table Grapes, Raisins and Unfermented Vine Products" Sub-Commission: Luis Peres de Sousa (Portugal)

• France has once again become the biggest producer in the world (46.2 mhl), ahead of Italy, which saw a poor harvest (44.4 mhl)
• Spain has returned to an average level of production (37 mhl) after a record year in 2013
• Good level of production in the United States (22.5 mhl) for the 3rd consecutive year
• Significant decline in production in Chile (10 mhl) and in several Eastern European countries
• Record production on New Zealand (3.2 mhl) and high growth in Germany (9.7 mhl)

During the press conference that was held at the headquarters of the International Organisation of Vine and Wine, the Director General of the OIV, Jean-Marie Aurand, presented initial information about world wine production in 2014.

Global wine production, excluding juice and musts, is likely to reach 271 million hectolitres – a decrease of 6% compared with 2013, according to the OIV's early estimates for 2014.

Mr Aurand specified that the 2013 data was revised upwards (287.6 mhl) due to wine made from the must of grapes held in reserve, particularly in Italy and Spain.

With only a few weeks to go until the opening of the World Congress of Vine and Wine, which will be held in Mendoza, Argentina (9-14 November 2014), the Director General of the OIV also emphasised the consolidation of global consumption, which is at this stage estimated at 243 mhl.

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PPT Press Conference Presentation [FR]

This Act supplements chapter V, Part VI of Book VI of the Rural and Maritime Fishing Code by Section L. 665-6 that reads as follows:

"Sect. L. 665-6. - Wines, vine products, viticultural terroirs as well as ciders and perries, spirituous beverages and beers derived from local traditions are part of the protected cultural, gastronomic and landscape heritage of France. "

Following in the footsteps of Uruguay or Argentina, which recognised wine as the "national drink", France is thus recognising special protection for wine and viticultural terroirs by integrating them into France's cultural, gastronomic and landscape heritage. It should be noted that the gastronomic French meal has been inscribed on the UNESCO Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity since 2010. This is a festive meal during which guests practice, for the occasion, the art of "good eating and drinking".

This presentation follows the OIV Director General's visit in September to present, to professionals in the sector, the technical and scientific activities of the OIV, as well as to strengthen cooperation of expertise. The Director General of the Israeli Ministry of Agriculture, Mr Ramy Cohen, was delighted that, for the second time at the OIV headquarters, Israeli viticulture had the opportunity to become better known as one of the components of Mediterranean wine culture.

Created in 2009 at the initiative of the French Ministry of Higher Education and Research, and uniting numerous professionals from universities and research organisations, the BSN ensures that any teacher-researcher, researcher or student has relevant scientific information and the most efficient tools possible available to them. The aim of this call for projects was to increase visibility and open-access dissemination in a digital environment of document corpora of major benefit to research.

In collaboration with the OIV, this project was supported by the University of Bourgogne and the National Center for Scientific Research acting on behalf of the French research institution, the Maison des Sciences de l'Homme (MSH) de Dijon, which has an Archives-Literature-Digitisation (Archives-Documentation-Numérisation, ADN) platform that is one of only a few in France to provide an data processing chain in its totality.

Attended by Mr Francis Aubert, Director of the MSH de Dijon, and Mr Yann Juban, Assistant to the Director General of the OIV, the first steering committee met in Dijon in order for the project's partners and service providers to discuss the different steps that should enable the collection to be made available online in 18 months' time, in June 2016. The technical phase of digitisation is already underway, with nearly 30% of texts processed. Discussions will be ongoing regarding tools for indexation and cataloguing, in order "to provide an interdisciplinary research tool for the use of the scientific community as well as professionals in the vine and wine sector or the general public ", as described by Professor Laurent Gautier, who took charge of the project.

This partnership supplements the new policy of digital scientific publication implemented by the OIV, which was presented by the Director General of the Organisation at the OIV General Assembly. The scientific publications presented at the Congress are now available on an OPEN ACCESS basis on the website http://oiv.edpsciences.org/ and in the Bio Web of Conferences journal. Mr Jean-Marie Aurand, indicating that this was the equivalent in volume of five years of the Bulletin, expressed his satisfaction that "these coordinated actions of the OIV can guarantee the sustainability and universality of access to international scientific and technical information in the vitivinicultural field."