Wine Law

THE EVOLUTION OF ROMANIA’S VINE AND WINE LAW 483 The official control of the physic-chemical parameters and organoleptic characteristics of the wines is performed in laboratories authorised by the Ministry of Agriculture 27 and that meet the general criteria for the operation of testing laboratories established in the ISO/IEC 17025 standard. Wines that do not comply with the parameters established by the already mentioned Methodological Norms are considered wines improper for human consumption and can only be used for distillation or vinegar production. IV.3.2. T RANSPORT OF WINE PRODUCTS AND MANDATORY RECORDS By Order no. 234/2004, the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development approved the documents accompanying the transports of wine products and the mandatory records in the wine sector. These records are registers for entry-exit of wine products in bulk, registers of oenological practices and treatments 28 , registers of inputs-outputs for alcohol and sucrose use in oenological practices and registers of bottling. Accompanying documents and records must be kept for at least five years from the end of the year in which they were drawn up. According to this normative act, any natural or legal person who carries out the transportation of wine products 29 must draw up under his responsibility a document 30 accompanying this transport. Moreover, natural or legal persons who market wine products must also keep records. Under this Order, the only ones not required to keep records are retailers engaged in a commercial activity of direct sales in small quantities to the consumer, sellers of beverages consumed exclusively on the spot and wine vinegar producers. 27 The current list of authorised laboratories in Romania can be found in Order of the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development no. 272/2010 on the approval of the list of laboratories designated to perform analyses within the official control in the wine sector. By this act, ten laboratories are authorised, eight for physic-chemical, microbiological and organoleptic analyses and two for isotopic analyses. 28 The registers of oenological practices and treatments highlight the following operations: a) raising the alcoholic potential of wines; b) acidification; c) de-acidification; d) sweetening; e) the addition of alcohol for the production of special wines; and f) bottling. 29 Article 3 of the Order provides for certain exceptions to this obligation, such as the transport of grapes within the same wine production unit, from the point of harvest to the industrial processing centre of the unit; transport of wine vinegar; or transport of products contained in containers with a maximum volume of 5 litres. 30 The model of the accompanying document is provided in Annex no. 1 of Order no. 234/2004, and the instructions for completion in Annex no. 2.