Wine Law

36 words used in Introductory Statement 46 of Regulation No. 1151/2012, stating a fundamental and inherent element of designations of origin and constituting most telling evidence of their public-law nature. All that we have claimed so far— and all that will be claimed in the future— in the matter of public responsibility of designations of origin, and their character, is fairly linked to the type of public oversight upon them. In other words, to the system of checks and balances on the part of national or regional guaranteeing public approval of their quality to all those submitting voluntarily to it. Here, the credibility of public checks overlaps or is added to the business know how. Here lies the relevance of such checks, amended on various occasions so that the credibility of those checks takes hold, and in turn, the designations scheme itself. The significance of this verification and supervision was the focus of the Special Report no. 11/2011 of the European Court of Auditors approved in July 2011 (so prior to the new Regulation being passed) entitled Do the design and management of the geographical indications scheme allow it to be effective? It was premised on the geographical indications scheme aiming to protect designations of products registered as PDO or PGI. It warned that “defining a robust system for the Member States’ checks related to the GI scheme and supervising these checks in an adequate manner are essential to achieve this objective ” , adding that “ despite the relevance of the protection of registered names against their disallowed use, no provisions are laid down in the Regulation as to what checks (if any) are required from the Member States in order to ensure such protection ” The new Official Controls Regulation No. 2017/625 has extended the scope for supervision that was regulated by its 2004 predecessor. In that sense, it is explicitly stated it applies to checks aiming at “the verification of compliance with the rules, whether established at Union level or by the Member States, to apply Union legislation” regarding, among other areas, the “use and labelling of protected designations of origin, protected geographical indications and traditional specialities guaranteed” [article 1.2 j)]. This explicit extension does not prevent the new Regulation from bringing in some “specific