Wine Law

256 WINE LAW legally established hours – between 6 a.m. and 8.30 p.m –, advertised a beverage with an alcoholic content below 20 degrees III. CONSUMER PROTECTION III.1. Consumer of food products Regarding alcohol consumption, it is true that public policies, in general, seek to dissuade citizens from consuming alcohol. However, it is no less true that the choice to consume alcohol – a lawful product allowed under certain conditions in commercial traffic – must be accompanied by sufficient and adequate legal protection for the consumer. It is worth noting that the conditions that make the commercial traffic of alcohol possible are fundamentally fiscal (payment of the corresponding tariffs and taxes), informative (the label is true and factual) and – most relevant to this article – sanitary (the composition is assimilable for the human body in terms of health). In this sense, the adulteration of the drink (with the sole spurious purpose of reducing costs and increasing profitability) constitutes the main risk for the alcohol consumer, so that the legal operator must point out the ways of avoiding such practice and the defence mechanisms for the victim of such a fraudulent practice. The legal protection of consumers has long received the attention of the legislators at all levels, and this article’s analysis will focus on Community and Spanish regulations. III.1.1. E UROPEAN LEGISLATION European institutions have issued normative instruments aimed at protecting the rights of consumers and users regardless of where they reside, travel or carry out legal and commercial operations within the territory of the European Union. Thus, one can cite Directive 98/27/EC, of the Parliament and of the Council, of 19 May 1998, on injunctions for the protection of consumers’ interests, and articles 114 and 169 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union (TFEU), which seek to ensure that every EU consumer enjoys a common and effective level of protection against risks and threats to their security and economic interests, as well as reaction and defence mechanisms against possible attacks on such rights.