Wine Law

31 4.3. Details of the Italian wine labelling The entire system of Act No. 238 of 2016 does not provide any precise definition, referring, however, to the definition identified from time to time in the relevant European legislation. Pursuant to article 43 of the Decree, for the labelling and presentation of wine products concerning the protection of PDO and PGI, traditional terms and other indications reserved for PDO and PGI wine products, the specific provisions established by EU legislation and the national provisions contained in this law and in the Minister’s decree to be adopted are directly applicable. As of the registration in the European Commission’s PDO and PGI register, DOs and GIs, traditional terms, larger geographical units, subareas and smaller geographical units and other indications reserved for the respective PDOs and PGIs cannot be used unless they comply with the provisions of the relevant production regulations, in the specific EU legislation and Act No. 238. Under current EU law, for the purposes of Act No. 238, the use of geographical names included in truthful proper names, company names or addresses of companies, cellars, farms and the like is not considered as a use of DOs or GIs. In cases where these names contain, in whole or in part, geographical terms reserved for DO and IGT wines or can create confusion if they are used for the labelling, presentation and advertising of wines having a different DO or IG or for other categories of wine products. It is mandatory that the characters used to indicate them do not exceed the size of three millimetres in height by two in width, with reference to the alphabetical character x , and, in any case, they are no larger than half, both in height and in width, of those used for the product designation. Additional provisions relating to the use, outside the relevant DO or GI, of the names of the PDOs, PGIs, traditional terms, of the largest geographical units, of the subareas, of the smaller geographical units and other indications reserved for the relevant PDO and PGI, as well as the provisions concerning the use of trademarks constituted or containing names of DO or IG, traditional terms and the geographical terms and indications reserved for the respective PDO and PGI, are to be defined by Minister Decree 57 . We shall see in point 4.5., the details of the domestic regulation of geographical units. 57 The Decree of 13 August 2012, National provisions implementing the Regulation No. 1234/07 (now Regulation No 1308/2013) of the Council, of implementing Regulation No 607/09 of the Commission (now