Wine Law

This Subsidiary Legislation specifically provides that “ Wines shall only be certified as “MALTA” D.O.K wines of the protocol in Schedule I is fully respected .” 18 . The same condition is found for the “ Gozo ” DOK wines 19 . The protocol provides the necessary guidelines to be adhered to by all registered wine producers, including how the containers must be made available at the wine establishment and in any cellar “ with the precise specifications of the relative capacities together with an identification code and indication of their exact position by means of an architectural plan to scale. ” Moreover, the “ identification codes on the containers must be fixed and indelible .” 20 . Any and all samples of the wine at bottling stage, for analysis purpose, must be taken by the authorities’ officers in the presence of the wine producer or his representative, which samples shall be a priori sealed. Such officers are further empowered to carry out technical controls at the vineyards to ascertain that production protocol is adhered to. Interesting is the provision that provides for grape producers, declaring that their produce is suitable for the production of DOK wines when such grapes do not actually possess the necessary requisites. The grape- grower could be deemed to have breached the relative Articles under this Subsidiary Legislation and could be found guilty of an offence with the consequence, that such grape- grower would be barred from participating in the DOK scheme for not less than two consecutive years. Again, this manifestly demonstrates that the intention is not to allow any form of distortion of the protocol in order to achieve the wine quality expected and accepted for DOK certificated wines. Schedule I provides that the DO shall be reserved for the red, white, rosé and varietal typologies of wine. Besides, that Malta DO may be complemented with the specification “ frizzante ”, “ semi-sparkling ” or “ aerated semi-sparkling ”, “ novello ”, “ passito ”, “ imqadded ”, or “ liqueur ”. As to the description of certain quality wines other than sparkling wines, the latter as established by the Schedule’s protocol as well as, where applicable, as defined in Annex I of Council Regulation (EC) 1493/99 and subsequent modifications thereof. As already mentioned, this Subsidiary Legislation for DOK Wines Production emphasises the necessity to have vineyards that must be typical of the region for the production of grapes with 18 Legal Notice No. 416 of 2017, Article 4(3). 19 Ibid , Article 4(4). 20 Ibid , Article 5(8).