COMMISSION REGULATION (EEC) No 1238/92 of 8 May 1992 determining the Community methods applicable in the wine sector for the analysis of neutral alcohol
THE COMMISSION OF THE EUROPEAN COMMUNITIES,
Having regard to the Treaty establishing the European Economic Community,
Having regard to Council Regulation (EEC) No 822/87 of 16 March 1987 on the common organization of the market in wine (1), as last amended by Regulation (EEC) No 1734/91 (2), and in particular Articles 35 (8), 36 (6), 38 (5), 39 (9), 41 (10) and 42 (6),
Whereas, under Council Regulation (EEC) No 2046/89 of 19 June 1989 laying down general rules for distillation operations involving wine and the by products of wine-making (3), neutral alcohol obtained by distillation operations in the wine-growing sector must be as defined in the Annex to that Regulation on the basis of criteria relating to its composition; whereas Community methods of analysis should be adopted in order to check whether the criteria have been complied with;
Whereas these methods must be binding for all commercial transactions and control operations; whereas, in view of the restricted opportunities for trade, a limited number of general methods permitting a rapid and sufficiently accurate analysis of the required components of the neutral alcohol should be adopted;
Whereas the Community methods of analysis adopted should be generally recognized in order to ensure that they are supplied on a uniform basis;
Whereas the current Community methods of analysis for neutral alcohol in the wine sector were adopted by Commission Regulation (EEC) No 3590/83 (4); whereas scientific progress necessitates the replacement of some methods with more suitable ones, the amendment of other methods and the introduction of new ones; whereas, in view of the large number and complexity of these changes, all the methods of analysis should be incorporated into a new Regulation and Regulation (EEC) No 3590/83 should be replaced;
Whereas the terms used for the repeatability and comparability of the results obtained with these methods should be defined so that the results obtained in application of the methods of analysis listed in Article 74 of Regulation (EEC) No 822/87 can be compared;
Whereas the measures provided for in this Regulation are in accordance with the opinion of the Management Committee for Wine,
HAS ADOPTED THIS REGULATION:
Article 1
1. The Community methods for the analysis of neutral alcohol as defined in the Annex to Regulation (EEC) No 2046/89 shall be as set out in the Annex to this Regulation.
2. The methods of analysis specified in paragraph 1 shall apply to neutral alcohol obtained by the distillation operations provided for in Regulation (EEC) No 822/87.
Article 2
For the purposes of applying this Regulation:
(a) the repeatability shall be the value below which the absolute difference between the two single test results obtained using tests conducted under the same conditions (same operator, same apparatus, same laboratory and a short interval of time) may be expected to lie within a specified probability;
(b) the comparability shall be the value below which the absolute difference between two single test results obtained under different conditions (different operators, different apparatus and/or different laboratories and/or different time) may be expected to lie within a specified probability.
The term 'single test result' shall be the value obtained when the standardized test method is applied fully and once to a single sample. Unless otherwise stated, the probability shall be 95 %.
Article 3
Regulation (EEC) No 3590/83 is hereby repealed.
Article 4
This Regulation shall enter into force on the third day after its publication in the Official Journal of the European Communities. This Regulation shall be binding in its entirety and directly applicable in all Member States.
Done at Brussels, 8 May 1992.