Wine Law

DESIGNATIONS OF ORIGIN WITHIN THE EU: LEGAL CHALLENGES 45 informative exercise (whether it initiates a legal status or limits itself to recognising an existing one), it is evident the registration of a designation of origin is a public-law act in its own right, an act performed by the competent authority (including the European Commission) 27 . 4) Is it not conclusive evidence of the public-law nature of designations that , in contrast to previous policies of self-rule and self-control characteristic of Spanish designations, in which agri-food producers would take over quality supervision and certification roles, today, it is legal provisions regulating “official guidelines” to ensure compliance with the legal requirements applicable to quality systems (art. 36 of current European Regulation) ? Who is entrusted with this verification task, one which includes supervision by inspectors? – Despite potential in-house inspections, supervised by the competent authority, such task should be carried out by either the “designated public bodies” or independent “product-certifying entities”, which will perform their duties on behalf of the state and under its supervision; in short, bona fide public or official oversight. 5) In the same vein, who would penalise non-compliance with regulations? – Aside from other means (there would always be access to courts for litigation), as soon as designations in Spain were instituted, they came under the jurisdiction of both courts and state agencies, which led to the setting up of Wine Provincial Authorities. It might be interesting, from an administrative point of view, to mention the following historical fact: in the early 1930s, “the action to lay a claim over infringement of the Wine Statute before the Wine Authority” was “public” 28 – a very telling example of the action’s perceived true nature, which might illustrate the underlying public interest in the legal status. Arguably, at a later stage in Spain, the penalty for non-compliance of the product specifications, while making use of the designation, was imposed by privately-run entities but bestowed with certain public powers (Regulatory Councils). Notwithstanding, at present and under Spanish law, the ordinary state departments have taken over those powers to issue sanctions, which is clear evidence of the increasingly public nature of designations. 6) Concerning the DOs’ public-law nature, is the right to the exclusive use thereof conditioned to the future holder of that right entering into the system , one which has been instituted on a case-by-case basis by the State, the most consequential? – 27 An evidence stated in a 1953 Ministerial Order: “these designations of origin would require for their efficacy an official approval on the part of the competent authority”, as stated before. 28 As established by article 19 of the Wine Provincial Authorities Statute, approved by executive order of 28 September 1933.